Roughnecks: STC The Longest Day
by bcampo
Summary: My version of unproduced episode 33. SICON's psychics are under attack, and no one knows why or how. While the Roughnecks chase the only lead, the Bugs are carrying out their plans for their most devastating attack to date.
1. part 1: Shriekers

Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles

episode 133 - part 1: Shriekers

by Brian Campo

**This is a work of fan fiction.** It is in no way to be taken as official. If the producers of the series ever see fit to finish it, I would be the first one to plunk down my money to buy a copy. This is simply my way of expressing my affection for a TV series that has brought me many hours of pleasure. This is my version of episode 133, an episode that was planned but never produced by the makers of the series. It is partially based on information about the episode that can be found on the net and stuff that was mentioned on the homefront dvd commentaries. I also borrowed from the original novel for some ideas. The original episode would not have played out like the one I have written. This is just how I would have done it. Hope you like it. If people want more, I could do my versions of the last three episodes of the series, that were also not produced.

_For weeks, SICON had been running the Roughnecks and other trooper squads around the globe in a seemingly perpetual cycle of transport and combat. We were reclaiming the sites the Bugs had taken in their opening attack of the Homefront Campaign while SICON command tried to stay one step ahead and figure out where they would strike next._

_As we moved from site to site, it became clear to us that the Bug's intelligence information was frighteningly accurate. We had all had a good laugh at the Bug's expense when we heard they had chosen a tourist attraction like the Eiffel Tower as a strategic target, but our laughter quickly died when we arrived in Paris to reclaim the secret facility hidden beneath the Eiffel Tower. The Bugs had known that the control center for a planetary missile defense system was there and their attack had created a window in our defenses that had allowed countless transport Bugs to land in the western hemisphere and offload their troops. We took back the facility, but the damage the Bugs had done while they held it would take weeks, possibly even months to repair. While we were emptying out the last of those Bugs, more had struck at other key locations around the world, disrupting food and water supplies, destroying dams and bridges, and tearing holes in our military defenses._

_We were on the move twenty four hours a day, day after day, only catching an hour or two of sleep when two missions were a greater distance apart and the longer transport time would allow it. It was three weeks in before there was any lull at all. On our way back from a little skirmish in the Alaskan oil fields, we landed at the Tongue Point Fleet Supply Depot, near the port city of Astoria, Oregon to refuel and resupply. It was 3:30 in the morning when we touched down on the landing pad in the middle of a rather nasty rain storm._

_At first we didn't realize what had happened. The ship was refueled and we sat on the tarmac waiting for our orders. An hour later, there were still no orders coming. Razak was the first to figure out what was going on. He realized that somehow, SICON traffic control had forgotten all about us, dropping us out of the rotation of troopers on the bounce. Not being one to pass up an opportunity, he acted quickly and decisively. He told us to disembark, and that we were on R and R until further notice._

_Well, an order is an order._

_We felt kind of guilty for a little while, knowing that other troopers were still fighting around the world with no rest while we would be getting our first shower in weeks. The El-Tee told us to stow that guilt, though. He said that any of those other squads would have made the most of the opportunity if they had been the lucky ones. Any traces of guilt we might have had vanished as soon as we collapsed into our bunks. As we surrendered to much needed sleep, we thought about all those other troopers and could only hope that eventually they too would fall through the cracks, if just for a little while and get a little break of their own. We sure wouldn't have begrudged them for it._

_The Memoirs of Robert Higgins, Fednet Journalist_

**Tongue Point** - Sleep hadn't lasted anywhere near as long as they would have liked. Weeks of catnaps had left them with an inability to sleep for any significant length of time. Four hours after they hit their bunks they had awoken, groggy, but unable to fall back to sleep.

Johnny Rico's bunk was empty. No doubt he had been called away by his sergeant's duties while they were sleeping. The restocking of the transport ship's stores of ordnance and supplies couldn't just be left to the base's staff. Since their lives didn't depend on those supplies, they were much more likely to leave out something essential. Sergeant Rico would have to make sure that every item that was needed was put on board and stowed correctly. SICON could notice that they weren't running one of their squads ragged at any time, and the ship needed to be ready to go whenever they called.

Lieutenant Razak hadn't been seen since shortly after they had landed. That wasn't unusual, though. He rarely slept in the same barracks as his squad and spent what little free time he had keeping up to date with the various hotspots of the Bug war. He had many friends in high places who would feed him Intel when he asked for it, so their lieutenant was remarkably well informed no matter what theater of operations the Roughnecks found themselves in. Throughout the war, they had grown used to not seeing Razak during downtime. When they did see him again, it would probably mean that they were going to be sent out once more, so as bad as it might sound, no one particularly missed him or was eager to see him.

The remaining members of the squad rolled from their beds, looking and feeling like the living dead, only hungrier. They shuffled sleepily from the barracks to the mess hall, where they inhaled food they would have called slop only weeks before without a hint of complaint. Like their sleep patterns, their appetites had adjusted to life on the bounce. Their bellies were used to eating a bite or two of MRE's when they had a free minute, so they were only able to eat a small portion of the food they had piled on their plates before they felt as full as Thanksgiving day. Convinced that she would be able to renew her appetite before long, Dizzy snuck her plate out of the mess hall while no one was looking and the others followed her example.

They ended up in the base's Rec. Hall, a dreary, windowless room in the basement below the barracks. It had white washed cinder block walls and a green zigzag patterned carpet that had been ugly and out of date when it was installed forty years before. Against one wall was a cabinet containing puzzles and board games, and if their experience with other rec. halls across the galaxy was any indication, most of these would be missing pieces. A shelf with a small library of books stood next to that. Most of the books were of the military variety and had creased bindings and yellowed, dog-eared pages. The front wall was occupied by a small kitchenette that featured a filthy microwave and a non-working coffee-maker. Gossard had tinkered with the coffee-maker for a little while, and with a rubber band and two paper clips, he had rendered it functional again. Some anonymous ape with equal ingenuity had rebuilt a broken down pinball machine using odds and ends to replace its missing parts. A pair of mess hall spoons made for the flippers, a piece of hydraulic hose sat in place of a ramp, and the bumpers and bells were made from empty thread spools and tin cans of various sizes.

Carl Jenkins played the pinball game, a little sullen that he had been denied a seat at Doc and Gossard's poker game. "No psychics allowed." they had insisted despite him swearing not to use his mind reading powers. He honestly wouldn't have cheated at the poker game, but neither of them was willing to risk losing all the chocolate chips they were betting with to him. Irritated at the situation, he smacked the flipper button a little too hard and wedged the ball between two bumpers at the top of the game. After a couple of good, solid knocks with his knee on the front of the game were unsuccessful in knocking it loose, he used a little telekinetic nudge to release the ball and was able to resume his game.

It wasn't really being left out of the card game that was bothering him. He was tired, and it was making him cranky. His sleep had been fitful at best, full of ominous and foreboding dreams of a massive, dark object moving through the vastness of space, something with a gravitational pull so strong that it would make planets warble in their orbits as it passed. The dreams had left him feeling disturbed, anxious. It wasn't in Carl's nature to be dramatic, but the words "impending doom" didn't seem completely out of the question. At first, he had only passed them off as dreams brought on by the round the clock race to hold back the tide of Bugs, but the feeling of dread was getting stronger and he was starting to suspect that what he was feeling might be a warning of something the Bugs were planning. If the feeling persisted, he would have to go find a FedNet monitor that he could use to log onto the Psychic Intelligence Network (P.I.N.) and see if any of the other psychics were picking up on the same things.

A delighted cackle came from the far end of the room. Carl glanced in its direction in time to see Dizzy punch Higgins in the shoulder and shout, "Now that sucker's gonna be sorry! Wally will have him beggin' for mercy!" There was a large but slightly dated TV over there and Higgins and Dizzy Flores were sprawled out on a worn, food-stained sofa, catching up on some cartoons to fill the time. Dizzy had fallen asleep with wet hair earlier and she now had a bad case of bed head that she was either unaware of, or indifferent to. Next to her, Higgins kept nodding off, but between Dizzy's shoulder punches, charlie horses and obnoxious laugh he kept snapping back awake.

T'phai sat in a chair nearby, holding a book about federation history and pretending not to watch the cartoon. But every once in a while he betrayed himself with a little chirping sound that his squad mates recognized as a rare Tophetti laugh. Each time he would glance around sheepishly and then pull the book back up to eye level. His eyes kept wandering to the TV screen, though.

The cartoon was one of the many 'Washout Wally' shorts. Washout Wally was a cap trooper who had washed out of boot because he wasn't big or strong enough to pass the tests. But what Wally lacked in stature and physique, he more that made up for in dedicated patriotism and sly moxy. He was short, scrawny, and wore a homemade "Powersuit" made out of hockey gear, football gear and baking pans. To compensate for his bad case of nearsightedness he wore black rimmed eyeglasses with lenses that were about an inch thick and made his eyes appear to be enormous. Despite the fact that he had been kicked out of the M.I. (Mobile Infantry) he still managed to mischievously sneak his way into the war with the Bugs and give them a taste of his own brand of justice. His brand of justice involved a lot of slapstick humor. The Bugs were anthropomorphized, far less dangerous looking versions of their real life counter parts. In the episode that was currently playing, a Brain Bug with a Hitler style mustache, a Swedish accent, and twenty monocles on the twenty eyes on one side of his face was seeing his plans for world domination foiled by Wally's quick thinking and shrewd use of pocket sized thermo nukes. Enraged, the Bug chases Wally, a chase which leads into an opera theater where Wally quickly dons the disguise of a theater manager and convinces the Brain Bug to stand in for a sick tenor.

"But I don't know how to sing opera." says the suddenly nervous Brain Bug.

Wally pokes at the Bug's fat rolls and says, "Well, you're certainly built for it!"

"I don't know any of the words!" protests the Bug petulantly.

"Neither do real opera singers!" said Wally. "They just make it up as they go along! Blah, blah fellisimo, blah, blah rotisserie-chicken-O!"

The Bug searches through pockets in his fat rolls, as if searching for a pen. "I really should be writing this down. . ."

"No time!" shouts Wally. "We gotta get you dressed!" This lead to a scene where Wally packs the enormous Brain Bug into a tight pair of pants and a tuxedo jacket using a large, rather cruel looking set of hydraulic presses, causing an enormous amount of discomfort for the Bug. With his suit threatening to burst at the seams, the still protesting Bug has a microphone shoved into his hand and is pushed out onto the stage and into the spotlight.

"Sing!" yells Wally from just off stage.

The Bug nervously clears his throat and tries a couple of croaking notes into the mike. "Fa, la, la."

"You gotta hold the mike a little closer!" says Wally as he discreetly slips his hand into his pocket.

The Bug pulls the mike closer, opens his mouth to sing, and that's when he notices the tip of the microphone looks suspiciously like a remote controlled thermo nuke. His terror filled eyes snap to Wally, who he can now see is holding a remote detonator.

"Finito!" he sings and then he's instantly reduced to ash and his shadow is burned into the curtain behind him. The opera crowd goes wild.

Wally struck a heroic pose, puffed out his chest and speaking directly to the viewer, said, "Are you doing your part?"

Dizzy shoved her fingers in her mouth and blew a loud whistling cheer. T'phai chirped again.

"I believe I am starting to understand the human sense of humor." observed T'phai cheerfully.

"Trust me," said Dizzy. "seeing Brain Bugs get what they deserve is funny no matter what corner of the galaxy you're from."

Across the room, Doc growled with frustration. "Something tells me I would have been better off against the psychic." he muttered as Gossard collected the chocolate chips from the center of the table.

"You flare your nostrils when you bluff." said Goss with a smug smirk.

The door opened and Rico walked in with his gear slung over his shoulder and a stack of disk cases under his arm. His hair and uniform were damp; it was still raining outside. "I heard that you lousy bunch of layabouts had holed up down here."

"Just laying low and tryin' not to get noticed." Dizzy said, not taking her eyes off of the TV.

"How's it going, Sarge?" said Goss.

Carl took his hand off of the pin ball game long enough to acknowledge Rico with a wave and then went back to playing.

"We missed you at chow." said Doc.

"The El-Tee has been keeping me busy. Some of us have to work for a living, you know." With a derisive look on his face, he took in the room and all it had to offer and declared it a dump. "More 'wreck hole' than Rec. Hall, isn't it? At least the TV works." he said.

The other roughnecks agreed, but they knew that the fact that the TV worked made this Rec. Hall better than most of the others they had been in. It was the nature of grunts to complain, though, and they wouldn't have admitted the place was halfway decent even if there had been an open bar and a carnival down there.

"Whatcha got there?" asked Goss, indicating the disks under Rico's arm.

"Oh, yeah. Almost forgot. Razak burned off our netmail. Looks like there's something for everybody." He pulled out the top disk, looked at the label. "Higgins."

Higgins launched himself over the back of the couch and caught the case when Rico sent it spinning towards him. He scanned the list of addresses listed on the cover and proclaimed, "Sweet!" before heading towards the door, on his way to find a mail reader.

"Paper-boy getting that excited," muttered Doc. "they must have picked the Dairy Queen back in Hickville."

Gossard chuckled behind his cards.

"Hey, Bobby! Can you grab me a reader, too?" Dizzy called after him.

Higgins hesitated for a moment, contemplated the abuse he would have to take if he refused, then with a shrug, said, "Sure, anyone else?" Hands shot up around the room, everyone with the exception of Johnny. "Okay, six mail readers. No problem."

Rico circled the room, handing out disks to everyone. When he handed over Carl's mail, Rico couldn't help but notice that his friend looked a little pale.

"You alright, buddy?" he asked.

"I think so." said Carl. "I've just had a feeling all day. It's probably nothing."

Rico had known Carl long enough to know that when he got one of his "feelings" it paid to pay attention. "Is it the Bugs? Are they trying something? Should we go to Razak?"

"Like I said, it's probably nothing. I'm going to go log on to P.I.N. and see if any of the other psychics are getting anything. I'd hate to make a big deal out of it if it's just lack of sleep or indigestion."

"Ok, well, you know what you're doing. Be sure to talk to the lieutenant if you find anything."

Carl responded with a nod as he rubbed his eye with the palm of his hand. "Will do, Sarge." Still concerned, Rico watched as his friend headed for the door.

Higgins returned a few minutes later with a precarious stack of readers. At T'Phai's request, Rico helped him insert a disk into one of the readers and work through the menus in order to get it to play. T'phai's clawed, three fingered hands were not really made for handling delicate disks or manipulating the readers tiny buttons.

When his vid-mail began to play, Rico handed the reader over to T'Phai. The Tophetti let out a contented little sigh and a look of pride shone on his face. Rico started to walk away, to give him privacy, but T'Phai called him back, eager to show him how his children back on Tophet were growing. Johnny watched over his shoulder, not understanding what the young Tophetti were saying, but knowing whatever it was delighted their father.

"They say that the schools are running again, and both are doing well. T'Phal is has found an interest in Geothermal Engineering, which is just wonderful. We need more Engineers. As you know, many of our greatest minds were lost when the Bugs had us enslaved."

Rico nodded. Many of the Tophetti had been worked to death in mines while under the influence of mind control Bugs. Unable to control themselves, they had slaved away until they dropped dead, leaving their control Bug alive to crawl away and find another victim.

"T'Phal and . . . M'Ret, is it? They are staying with your sister?" asked Johnny.

"My wife's sister." replied T'Phai. He seemed pleased that Rico had remembered his children's names.

"Is there still no word about your wife?"

T'Phai's wife, L'Uarr, was a soldier, as he was. She had disappeared in the early days of the Bugs invasion of Tophet and since SICON had freed the planet from the Bug stranglehold, no sign of her or about a million other Tophetti had been found.

"None." said T'Phai. "But I must believe that she is still alive."

It was easier to believe after the Bugs had first been defeated there. The planet was in chaos, all communication was broke down, and nearly the entire population had been displaced. Your loved ones could have been anywhere. Everyone thought that if you were patient, they would find their way home eventually. But now, so much time had passed. Hope was getting harder to hold onto. Rico could see it in T'Phai's eyes that reality was sinking in. He put his hand on his team mate's shoulder and squeezed.

"She's out there." he said.

T'Phai nodded, but made no reply. Then he shook it off, tried to put his mind on other things.

"What about you, Rico? You have word from home, do you not? Would you like to use this reader?"

Rico looked at the label on the case in his hand for a moment, and then said, "No. I'm pretty sure I already know what he has to say."

T'Phai's face took on an expression that was something like puzzlement. "Who? Wait. No I'm sorry. I do not mean to pry."

"It's nothing." said Johnny. "My father has never approved of my joining the M.I. When I get mail from him it's just so he can once again tell me all the things I've done wrong."

"Ah." said T'Phai. "It is often this way between fathers and sons."

"Even on Tophet?" Rico asked with a bit of a smile.

"Oh, yes. With my father it was my choice of spouse. I married outside of my guild, and he never forgave me for it. Your father does not approve of the Federation's military?"

"Actually, he used to be part of it. Before he and my mom were married he enlisted and did a couple of tours. He was discharged honorably and earned his citizenship. But by the time he got there he was disgusted with the Federation and the way they did things throughout the galaxy."

"I do not understand." said T'Phai. "I am trying to learn about the history of the Federation. What was it that bothered him?"

Johnny picked up the history book that T'Phai had been reading and thumbed through some of the pages. "You're going to find that they don't tell the whole story in books like these, T'Phai. There was a lot of things he saw out there that he didn't like, was ordered to do a lot of things that he thought were morally wrong. Things like sanctions and embargos that he had to enforce that he could see led to innocent people starving to death. He saw people losing everything they had because of the Federation's eminent domain policies and there was nothing they could do or say to defend their property or rights because they weren't citizens. We made allies out of despots if it benefitted us and turned a blind eye to slavery and genocide. He saw all these horrible things and he swore he would try to change things when he got out."

"And did he?"

"He tried. He became an activist. He worked hard to get the information out there to the citizens, show them what our government was doing in the boondocks and backwaters of the galaxy when no one was watching. That was the worst part. When he showed people, very few of them seemed to care. He had his vote, but found out how little it counted when the majority of citizens couldn't be made to care what the Federation was doing.. They wanted stability and tended to vote in the interest of stability, not morality. It's been an uphill battle for him, but he's being trying ever since. "

"Do you disagree with your father's beliefs?"

"I think his views of the Federation are a little too paranoid, but I think he makes some good arguments."

"Then what have you done that he doesn't approve of? One would think that having someone who believes as he does earning the right to vote would be a good thing."

"Not in him. In his opinion, the Federation and the military were immoral and he thought he was wrong to have helped enforce the Federation's policies just so he could have a say in them. The last thing he wanted was to see me make the same mistakes. He wanted me to do well in school, which I didn't do, then go on to college, which I also didn't do. If I wanted to become a citizen, he said, there were other ways of earning it. Instead, he thinks I enlisted for all the wrong reasons and will probably end up getting killed for all the wrong reasons."

"And why did you enlist, Johnny Rico?"

Johnny grinned and said, "For all the dumbest reasons, brother. I saw all those soldiers coming home from Operation Pest Control and I wanted to be just like them, to be a hero with medals all over my chest and have girls throwing themselves at me. And there was a girl I liked who had joined up, so I joined up, too, trying to impress her. I was an idiot."

"You regret joining up?"

"Oh, no." said Johnny. "I like who I've become since I did. That's what my Dad doesn't understand. I may have been an idiot, and joined for all the wrong reasons, but I've stayed for all the right ones. I've done a lot of good as a trooper, and I've yet to have been asked to do anything I would have moral qualms about. I'm proud to be in the M.I."

"Have you not told him how you feel?"

"I haven't actually talked to him in a long time. Not since the beginning of the war. We both said a lot of things we shouldn't have. Every time we tried to talk things went badly. Eventually, I just gave up. He sends me a letter every once in a while, but it's always the same thing. All about all the mistakes I was making, what a fool I was being, and how if I would just see sense he could help me get out. I stopped even watching them after a while. I hadn't even bothered to download them for years now. I usually just leave them on the Fednet server. The luitentant didn't know. Downloaded everything I had waiting for me and burned it to disk."

"How regrettable that things should have gone so badly between you." T'Phai said solemnly. "But, strangely, I envy you."

"How so?" asked Rico as he unzipped one of the side pockets on his duffel bag and slid the disk case inside.

"As I told you, my father and I had a . . . how is it you say? Oh, yes, a falling out. He died before we could make peace. I believe I would love to have a message from him like the one you have, even if it was just him telling me what a fool I was being. When I think of all the things I just had to be right about, I do feel like a fool now. If he were alive today, I believe I would send him a message, not about who was right or who was wrong, but just simply telling him how much I love him."

Rico stood there for a moment, thinking perhaps that T'Phai was making some clumsy attempt at moralizing and feeling a slight flush of anger because of it. But looking into T'Phai's alien, but oh, so human eyes, he saw no condemnation there. The alien was simply telling him how he felt about his own father. The anger melted away to guilt as T'Phai's words sank in.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Rico nodded. "Maybe I'll try that." he said.

The door was thrown open with a bang. Rico turned to look and saw Lieutenant Razak quickly striding in. One look at his Lieutenant's face and Johnny knew right away that something was wrong. Razak's eyes swept the room and then came to rest on Rico.

"Where's Jenkins?"

"He isn't here, sir." replied Johnny. "He just left to go check with the other psychics on the network and see if any of the other P.I.N.heads were picking up on a funny vibe he was getting. Is something wrong?"

"We need to find him." said Razak. "Word just came off of the horn that the Bugs are pulling some kind of sneakiness, and we got psychics dropping left and right."

"Dead, sir?" blurted Dizzy, horrified. She was on her feet and crossing the room in an instant. Doc and Gossard dropped their cards, and shoved their chairs away from the table, the poker game forgotten.

"No, but definitely out of commission. They're having fits, falling down, flopping around. Some kind of seizures. They're completely shut off."

"We'll find him." said Rico with a sinking feeling in his belly. "I think there was a Fednet station upstairs by the barracks. He might have gone there." They hurried out of the room and up to the next level.

"This way." said Rico, leading them to a metal door with the words "Fednet Station" stenciled on it. Razak pushed past him and threw the door open. Then he was turning and shouting, "Doc, front and center!"

Rico looked over his shoulder and saw his friend laying on the floor inside the room, convulsing, contorting and spewing froth from his mouth. Little trickles of blood were running from his nostrils and ears. The back of his head was smashing into the concrete floor violently with each spasm and Rico could see smudges of blood under Carl's head. He wondered, how many minutes this had been going on while they were down in the Rec. Hall chatting it up? Johnny was faintly aware of Doc moving into the room and shouting for someone to help him hold Carl down. Then Gossard was throwing his whole body onto Carl, trying to pin him to the floor and stop him from hurting himself anymore. Razak was yelling something, something to Dizzy about getting a stretcher, then he was saying something to Rico, but Rico couldn't take his eyes off of the red smudge on the floor that was getting bigger every time Carl smashed his head back.

"RICO!"

Razak bellowed his name with uncharacteristic ferocity. At the sound of his name being shouted with such force, Rico jerked in surprise and snapped out of his daze.

"Sir?" he responded shakily.

"Go secure us some kind of transport so we can get Carl to the infirmary."

Rico responded with "Yes, sir!" and was away at a run. By the time he had sprinted through the rain to the Administrative Building, commandeered an idling jeep that was parked out front and returned to the barracks, the rest of the squad had strapped Carl to a stretcher and had him ready to be transported. When Johnny slid to a stop by them, they quickly loaded Carl's stretcher onto the back of the jeep and secured it with canvas straps. Then all of them found a space to wedge themselves into on the jeep, and they were off.

By cutting across a couple parking lots, a covered picnic area, and a muddy football field they had Carl to the infirmary in minutes. Once they had him inside and transferred to a gurney, Doc yielded to the doctor's superior knowledge without a seconds hesitation and let them take over Carl's care. He had a pretty solid education in battlefield medicine, but felt very out of his league with whatever was afflicting Carl.

Not that it did much good. They did what doctors all over the world were doing to the stricken psychics. They pumped him full of drugs until the convulsions subsided and he slipped into a medically induced coma. That was all that could be done, really. No one knew what was wrong with them, much less how to treat the problem.

Once Carl had been stabilized, they moved him to a private room so they could keep him under observation. Needing to find out more about what was going on, Razak had left them, telling them he would return as soon as possible. Hopefully he would have some answers when he got back. The rest of the Roughnecks stood by their fallen comrade, feeling useless and in the way of the infirmaries staff.

Carl's room was small, with only a couple of chairs for visitors. With so many people in such a small space, it was very crowded. The doctors had tried to get them to wait out in the waiting room, but the squad hadn't budged.

"What could be doing this?" Rico asked Goss and Doc, hoping that one of them might have an answer in one of their fields of expertise. Technology and medicine had no answers, though.

"We still don't know much about how psychics work, Rico." said Doc. "The only evidence we have to prove that their powers do work are the results psychics provide us. You can have two psychics sitting in the same room sending messages back and forth, but science still hasn't found a way to detect that message moving between them."

Johnny shook his head disgustedly. "Well, apparently the Bugs have it figured out. What about you, T'Phai? Your people were fighting the Bugs long before we were. Have you ever heard about anything like this before?"

"Regrettably, I have not." said the Tophetti. "The very idea of a psychic was foreign to me until your kind came to Tophet. This kind of attack would have been useless against us."

Dizzy stepped in close to them, looking sick with worry ."Does all this mean that we may not be able to find how the Bugs are doing this?" There was hint of panic in her voice. "That he could stay like this? There has to be something we can do."

"I don't know." Doc told her. "When it comes to psychics, the ones who are going to know the most about them are the psychics themselves. And they aren't throwing in their two cents worth right now."

"The way he was bleeding from his ears and nose." said Rico. "I've seen him do that before. When he's pushed his powers too hard."

"Maybe that has something to do with it." Doc said with a shrug. "Maybe the Bugs are overloading them somehow, with some kind of signal. That would make more sense than this being some kind of disease."

Dizzy ran a hand over Carl's wrinkled brow, smoothing back his hair. Despite the drugs, he was still feeling the effects of whatever was happening to him. His hands were balled into tight fists, his jaw was clenched, and little twitches kept twisting his face into a grimace. She sniffed, and then quickly wiped her eye with the back of her hand. She took a deep breath, held it for a second and then let it out. "I hate seeing him like this." she said. "He's hurting."

"The lieutenant is working on it." said Higgins. "He'll come up with something."

A little over an hour later, Razak's voice crackled over the intercom system, telling Alpha Squad to grab their gear and meet him at the transport. The intercom clicked off for a moment, and then, a few seconds later, back on and Razak spoke again, saying only, "We have a lead."

The drizzle outside only added to the glumness of the day and did nothing to improve their moods. It was late morning, but the sky was so overcast and dark that it looked like it was much later in the day. Spurred on by the urgency of the situation, they quickly collected their belonging from the barracks and headed out to the landing pad where their transport waited.

Despite the thick layer of fog covering the entire base, they could see several figures moving around beneath the ship. As they drew closer, they could see that none of them were Razak. However, one of them was their pilot, Lieutenant Carmen Ibanez. From the looks of their uniforms, the other two people with were base mechanics, and Carmen had them running in circles, getting the ship ready for take off.

They hadn't seen Carmen since they landed here hours before. Her being Fleet, she would be have bunked in a completely separate part of the base. Most likely she hadn't had much bunk time, though. Because they had been on the move for so many consecutive days, the ship hadn't had any real maintenance in weeks. Being the pilot she was, Carmen would have taken the opportunity their little break provided to see to it that everything on board got the once over. Sure, the base mechanics could have done the work, but she would have wanted to be there, supervising, making sure everything was checked. Sometimes the only way to make sure things were done right was to stand over the person who was doing it with a big wrench in your hand.

Their transport was a retrieval ship called the 'Bouncin' Bettie '. The 'Bettie' was an older model, a couple of decades old in fact, less stealthy than some of the Retrieval Ships coming off of the line now. She was a little beat up maybe, a little rough around the edges, but a well maintained, solid ship. Just below the pilot's window was a painting of 1950's pin-up queen Bettie Page in a leopard skin bikini striking a cheesecake pose. She had one eye winking suggestively and a cartoon balloon over her head stating, "I'll catch you on the bounce, Trooper." The ship had practically been their home since the war with Bugs had come to earth, and had pulled them out of some pretty hairy situations. They couldn't help but feel a certain kind of affection for it, like a cowboy would for a steady horse.

Looking away from her work for a moment, Carmen spotted the Roughnecks headed out to the ship. She left the mechanics with a couple of quick parting orders and then sprinted out into the rain to meet the approaching troopers.

Sicon was trying to keep the situation with the psychics under wraps, but despite their best efforts, word was still getting around. Carmen had heard through the grapevine about Carl and the first words out of her mouth were asking about how he was doing.

"They've got enough drugs in him to make a Plasma Bug woozy." Dizzy told her as they walked the rest of the way to the ship. "The seizure he had was pretty bad and the doctors are worried he may have given himself brain damage. They say there's no way to tell how badly he's been hurt until he wakes up."

Carmen, Rico and Dizzy had all gone to school with Carl, had grown up with him, really, so this was hitting them particularly hard. "Well, they've got all of you and me out here, so maybe there's something we can do."

"You seen Razak?" Rico asked her. He wiped at some water that was running off the tip of his nose.

She was about to respond in the negative when she noticed something over their shoulders. "I think that's him coming right now." she said, pointing behind them.

She was right. A jeep was driving out towards them; the same jeep Rico had borrowed earlier. Razak was in the passenger seat and as it pulled up, he hardly let the jeep come to a stop before he was bailing out and making a beeline for the ship's loading ramp.

"You said something about a lead, sir?" Rico asked him, trying to keep up.

Razak said, "We'll discuss it in the air. Time's a wasting."

Carmen double-timed her pace, running ahead of them and heading to the cock pit. Minutes later, they were in the air and headed south with the throttle wide open.

**Somewhere over Nevada** - Razak stood in the middle of the cargo bay, steadying himself against the ship's rocking motion with one hand on a vertical support beam. He was in full combat gear and was holding his helmet under his other arm.

The version of powersuit he was wearing was the one designated for what SICON called "non-hostile environments". From the sound of it, if you were wearing this suit it was all smooth sailing ahead, a pleasant day walking in the park. This was a bit of a misnomer, as they were only referring to the hostility of the environment itself, not to any of the creatures running around in it. Hostility in an environment referred to temperatures, air pressures, atmospheric gases, gravities and toxins that were detrimental to human life. Enemy hostility could still be expected in non-hostile environments.

The suit he was wearing was a stripped down version of the hostile environment suit. The helmet only covered the top, back and sides of the head and left the face exposed. The air recycling system was gone, as was the full body pressure suit. Otherwise, it still had all the same advantages of the full version, including strength enhancement, protective armor, communication and targeting technology, and jump jets. If you asked a trooper what the biggest advantage to the stripped down version was they would tell you it was the privilege of not breathing canned air.

The rest of the squad were geared up in the same kind of powersuits, and were buckled into seats that could be folded down out of the walls. The Lieutenant had said that he would fill them in on what he had learned after they had suited up. Knowing there was no point in trying to negotiate with Razak, they donned their battle gear as quickly as possible and got themselves settled into their seats where they waited to hear about this lead he had alluded to.

"Anybody ever heard of Neo-Dogs?" He had to speak loud to be heard over the roar of the ship's engines.

In response to his question, they looked at each other and shrugged in ignorance.

Everyone except for Higgins, that was. He spoke up. "I did a piece for FedNet about them one time." he told the others. "They're genetically altered dogs. I hear they're super smart, for a dog anyway. They can talk, but real funny like on account of their mouths aren't shaped for language. Much bigger than your usual dog, somewhere around three hundred and fifty pounds. They're used for reconnaissance, locating bombs and searching for missing people. "

"Sounds like you know more than I do." said Razak. "What do you know about their relationship to their handlers?"

"Not much, but then again I don't think that there's many who do know anything. I know they're symbiotic, they have some kind of connection. I hear that if the handler gets killed they have to put the dog out of it's misery. If the dog gets killed the handler has to go through years of rehabilitation and therapy. Spooky sounding stuff. Don't know how much of it is true."

"That seems to jibe with what I'm hearing from the Brass." said Razak "Apparently, the link between dog and handler has never been completely explained but the people running the program have a basic idea of how it works. The handlers have a natural empathy towards animals that is enhanced through many months of training until the dog and the handler form some kind of mental link. Eventually, communication between the dog and the handler is almost exclusively telepathic. The handlers aren't psychic in your normal sense, they can't read people's minds or sense events outside of the range of their senses but they seem to be tapping into some of the same kinds of powers."

The question was obvious and leapt to everyone's minds simultaneously, but it was Rico that asked it first. "Are they being effected by whatever is happening to the psychics?"

"It appears so." Razak replied. "All the same symptoms." The squad seemed to deflate with disappointment.

"What good does that do us?" Dizzy asked with an air of frustration. She didn't see how any of this was helping their friend.

Goss had it, though. "The dogs aren't effected, are they?"

"You get the gold star." said Razak. "Apparently, they're in a lot of pain. There's some kind of nasty feedback coming over the connection with their handlers, and it's hurting them pretty bad, but they can speak. They're telling us what they can. Apparently, they have a sense of the direction where this thing is coming from."

Once she got what he was saying, Dizzy broke out into a laugh. "We can track it!"

"We think so." said Razak. "We're going to make a little pit stop in Phoenix, Arizona and pick up a couple of passengers. Then we should be able to hunt this thing down and put a stop to it."

**K-9 Corps training facility, Phoenix, Arizona** - The rain had thinned as the Bettie had come south and had disappeared completely by the time they crossed over the Nevada border. They entered Arizona only a little after noon and it was sunny and cloudless out over the desert. When they had landed, the loading ramp had lowered, and the Roughnecks had been treated to a drastic change in climate. The air that rushed into the Bettie's cargo bay had felt as dry and hot as an oven in comparison to the weather they had left behind in the Pacific Northwest.

The two passengers Razak had mentioned were a comatose K-9 corps officer named Frank Bennett and a Neo-Dog named Smoke. When Razak and Johnny stepped down out of the Bettie, one of the facilities doctors was waiting for them, ready to explain why they would need to take an unconscious corpsmen with them. He introduced himself as Phil Walsh.

"Two reasons." said Phil. "Number one is, Smoke is already in a high state of anxiety. Between worrying about Frank's welfare and the pain he's receiving over their link, I'm surprised he hasn't had a nervous breakdown already. You separate him from Frank and it will probably be more than he can handle. He'll be useless to you.

Reason number two is, his ability to sense where this signal is coming from is through Frank. Frank is detecting the direction and Smoke is picking it up from him. If you want to track it to it's source, you'll have to take Frank along and Smoke will know when you are getting close."

Razak didn't like the idea, but he didn't have time to argue it either. "What if your corpsman takes a turn for the worst? I have a field medic on my squad, but I can't be leaving him behind to tend to your man. I'm going to need him on the ground to help us deal with whatever is causing this."

"I can come with you to keep him stable." said Phil. "I know the situation isn't ideal, but for this to work, I believe you must take both the dog and the handler. We understand the danger to our man, but considering the circumstances I don't see how any of us have a choice. If we don't find the source of the signal, I'm afraid we will lose all of our handlers and you will lose all of your psychics."

Razak looked across the tarmac at a group of doctors surrounding a man strapped to a combat stretcher, then at the forlorn looking beast laying beside him and sighed with resignation. "I hate to seem rude, or ungrateful, but you have to take full responsibility for anything that happens to your man. We absolutely can not turn back if he starts having any problems. Even if his symptoms get worse, we have to keep pushing on until we locate the threat."

"I understand." said the doctor. "Trust me, it's what Frank would want." He paused for a second and then said, "Before I introduce you to Smoke, I'd like to cover a few points about Neo-Dog."

"That's fine." said Razak. "But we need to make it quick."

"I'll try to keep it short and to the point. A Neo-Dog is about as intelligent as a human five or six year old and emotionally they're about the same. When you want to talk to him, just talk to him like you would any of your troopers, but keep it simple. Clear commands with as little jargon as possible. If you don't think a little kid would understand what you're asking, he probably won't either. Try not to talk down to him, though. No baby talk. They hate being treated like dogs and they're smart enough to know when you're being condescending. Don't try to pet him, either. Only their handlers get to do that, and if you try you're just going to upset him."

"Sounds pretty much like how we used to treat Brutto." Rico whispered out of the side of his mouth.

Razak suppressed a laugh, but gave Rico a look that said "Can it."

"We'll try to avoid offending the pooch." he said to the doctor. "Anything else?"

"Like I said before, Smoke's pretty wound up with everything going on. If you want to keep him calm, try to keep his mind on other things. Neos love simple jokes, knock-knocks, that sort of thing. If you guys got any, I'd suggest telling him a few. I think it'll help him, and he might warm up to you."

"With the crew I got, he'll be in dumb joke heaven." Razak said with a smile.

"That's great. Now, if you're ready, I'll take you over to meet him."

The dog looked up at them as they approached, sniffing.

Phil said, "Smoke, this is Lieutenant Razak and Sergeant Rico. They're here to help us stop whatever is hurting Frank."

The dog wagged it's tail half heartedly, in an attempt at a greeting.

When Rico looked in it's eyes, he could see pain there. Seeing this, he felt a wave of sympathy wash over him. He knelt down next to the dog and said, "How's it going, buddy?"

"Hurts." said Smoke in a high pitched cross between a whine and a yip. "Frank hurt, too. Something shrieks in his head."

"Well, with your help, maybe we can do something about that."

The dog wagged it's tail, a little more forcefully this time.

Higgins was right, the Neo-Dogs were huge. Smoke looked like he may have come from some kind of English Mastiff breed, but he would have made those dogs look positively frail in comparison. His head looked like it was the size of a prize winning bull's. His muscle structure was much thicker, much more pronounced than a normal dogs. His fur was gray with a mottled, almost tiger-stripe pattern in black on his back and sides. When he got to his feet, his shoulders were even with the bottom of Johnny's rib cage. Rico could have easily ridden on Smoke's back, and he doubted that the dog would have noticed he was there. Smoke wore no collar, but did have a harness made of leather that wrapped around his rib cage. It could be used to attach packs of supplies that the Neo-Dog and his handler would need on a mission.

"Sergeant." said Razak. "Why don't you show Smoke on board the Bettie while these doctors here load up his friend.

"Yessir." Rico replied and then said, "Come on, Smoke."

The dog took a moment to sniff his handler, and then followed Rico to the transport. He stopped in the cargo bay to make brief introductions to the rest of the squad and then led Smoke into the cockpit, where Carmen was idling the engines.

"Say hello to your new navigator." Rico told her. "This is Smoke. Smoke, this is Carmen"

Carmen smiled at the dog and said, "Hello, Smoke. Which way are we headed today?"

Smoke pointed his nose out the left side of the cockpit and said, "South. All I know now."

Carmen nodded and said, "It's a start."

The doctors secured Frank Bennett in the medical bay and then disembarked, leaving only Phil Walsh behind. Razak saw them off of the ship, closed the loading ramp and over a com, let Carmen know they were clear for take-off. In a matter of moments, they were in the air once again, headed south into old Mexico.

Eventually, their route turned more towards the south east than due south. Smoke's directions became clearer the further they went. They crossed down through the plains and deserts of northern Mexico, angling more and more eastward as the landscape below began to change to jungle in the southern part of the country.

According to both the doctor and Smoke, Frank's symptoms were getting worse the further south they traveled. The dog was doing his best to ignore the pain, but every once in a while he would let out a yip, as if he had been bitten. He would shake his head, as if trying to dislodge the discomfort and then go back to staring out the ship's windshield. The doctor was giving Frank more medication, but it was getting less and less effective as time went by. He was groggily struggling against the straps that were holding him to the stretcher, and they eventually had to strap his head down when he started trying to smash his own skull in again.

Rico stayed in the cockpit with Carmen and Smoke, trying to keep the dog's mind off of his handler's suffering. It took a little while to develop an ear for the Neo-Dog's accent. The words were formed out of whines, yips, barks, growls, howls and moans but if you listened close enough, you could hear the words he was trying to say. Before long, Rico, Carmen, and Smoke were having simple conversations. He followed Dr. Walsh's advice with Smoke, telling him jokes he could remember from his childhood. It did help keep the dog calm. You could tell if Smoke liked a joke because he would wag his tail afterward. If he didn't think it was so great, he'd roll his eyes, sniff and say, "Not funny." or "Heard it before."

Carmen had a laugh at Rico's expense after one stinker and said, "He's right. It was pretty bad."

"Oh, yeah?" Rico retorted. "What time is it when a Neo-Dog sits on your cat?"

The dog shrugged.

"Time to get a new cat."

Smoke rolled his eyes, but then after a second, wagged his tail, too.

They crossed the border into Guatemala an hour after they left Phoenix with rain forest covered mountains whipping past beneath them. The mountains grew taller as they moved into the Alta Verapaz region, giant green humps rising up out of cloud covered valleys. Occasionally, they could see columns of smoke rising up from small villages situated next to winding rivers.

"It's close now." Smoke told them.

Carmen eased off of the throttle, bringing the ship down to a cruising speed that was less likely to overshoot their target.

"Is it still dead ahead?" she asked.

"Yes." said Smoke. He tilted his head to the side, slightly and his eyes half closed."Very close now." About minute later, he said, "Stop. We passed it."

Carmen pulled back on the yoke, slowed to a stop, and then circled back to the spot Smoke had indicated. She dropped her altitude until they were only about thirty feet above the treetops and then just let the Bettie hover in space. Having noticed the change in speed and direction, Razak appeared in the cockpit doorway.

"Is this it?" he asked.

"Yes." said Smoke. "It's below now."

"Where are we?" Razak asked the pilot.

She flipped a keyboard down out of a panel to her left and typed a few keys. Maps appeared on a screen in front of her. "We're in Guatemala near an area called Cancuen. There are lots of archeological sites in the area but not much else besides jungle. Directly below us are some mountains with underground rivers crisscrossing through them. There's a pretty extensive cave system."

"Sounds like Bug country." said Razak. "I'm in the mood to do a little spelunking."

Rico and Smoke followed Razak back to the cargo bay where the rest of Alpha Squad were awaiting their lieutenant's orders with eager anticipation. Just by looking at them, you could tell they were itching for a fight. Dizzy looked like she was positively chomping at the bit.

"Alright, people, lock and load, practice your snarl and put on your mean face. Smoke says this is the place, and I'm saying this is the time. Goss, Doc, I want you in Marauders. Dizzy, T'Phai, bring along a couple of flame throwers." He turned and looked down at the Neo-Dog. "Smoke, I was wondering if you would mind helping us continue to track this thing on the ground."

"I'll find it." said the dog. "Help Frank."

"Good. I'm designating you an honorary ape." said Razak. "Rico, you can help me get our friend, Smoke, to the ground. We're dropping by jump jets in three minutes. Move out."

A very energetic, "Yes, sir!" rang out as the squad scrambled to get ready for the drop. Doc and Gossard climbed into their marauders and powered them up. After giving the hydraulic fluids a little time to heat up, the two noisily clanked their way out onto the platform in the middle of the cargo bay floor. Once they were in position, the platform was lowered, giving everyone a view of the jungle below. Already they could see evidence of a Bug presence. The treetops were covered in thick sheets of webbing, a telltale sign that Spider Bugs were in the area. Trapped in the webbing, they could see the corpses of hundreds of animals; birds, monkeys, lizards, small deer, rodents and even large snakes.

Directly below them was an open strip in the thick foliage that led up to a mountainside a short distance away. This was most likely the path of one of the rivers Carmen had spoken of. It would make for the best landing zone when they dropped.

T'Phai dropped nimbly down onto the platform with a flame thrower in his hand. Reaching back, he locked the flame thrower into place on one side of back pack and then pulled his Morita smart rifle from it's clip on the other side. He scanned the forest below with his gun raised in a shooters stance. His eyes caught a flash of movement and he tracked a Spider Bug as it jumped from tree to tree.

"We have Bugs." he said calmly. "Requesting permission to engage."

"Permission granted." Razak told him as he jumped down onto the platform with them. "Smoke 'em if you see 'em."

T'Phai opened up, firing off one round. The Spider Bug he had spotted curled into a ball and fell from the trees, shot through a key nerve cluster. The Tophetti search for another Bug and finding one, dropped it with another single shot. He continued to rain on the Bug's parade while the rest of the squad finished preparing for the drop. Doc and Gossard watched from their marauders, shaking their heads with amazement when each shot sent a Bug to it's doom.

Gossard cleared his throat. "Hey, T'Phai. Buddy. Heh, heh. Save some for us. We don't want to have come all this way for nothing."

"We still look way cooler when we kill Bugs." said Doc, feeling a little outclassed.

T'Phai cut yet another Bug's life short.

"Requesting permission to kick the Tophetti overboard, sir." Gossard called out.

"Permission denied." said Razak. "It's time to drop."

T'Phai lowered his rifle but kept a watchful eye out below. Dizzy walked to the edge of the platform and stepping off of it, said, "Watch that first step. . ." As she dropped they heard her call out, "It's a loo loo!" Then came the roar of her jump jets. She was followed by T'Phai and then Higgins, who had a camera pretty much glued to his eye and was muttering something. He was probably composing the narration that he would be adding to the video later. When the first three jumpers had been on the ground long enough to clear out of the way, the two marauders went over, jump jets already burning. The last to go were Razak, Rico, and Smoke.

"Grab that side of his harness." Razak told Rico. "Between the two of us we should be able to get him on the ground in one piece. Just remember to really crank your jets to compensate for the extra weight."

Rico acknowledged with a "Yessir.", secured a good grip on Smoke's harness and then the trio were stepping out over the open jungle and dropping down through the air to the river below. Rico watched how hard Razak fired his jets and tried to match him, so they came down more or less even, the intense weight of the dog hanging between them.

The sounds of sporadic gunfire echoed up from down below. Then the marauder's miniguns opened up, drowning out all the other sounds. As they came down, Rico spotted the other Roughnecks standing in the river a short distance upstream, blazing away with their guns at quickly moving shapes on the river banks. They were engaged in a hot little scrap with Spider Bugs. Bugs were leaping off of the river banks, trying desperately to reach the troopers with their stingers. Others were jumping in the tree tops and squirting liquid webbing at the troopers from above, hoping to snag one of them with a strand and yank him up into the trees where he could be dismembered. It was all the squad could do to keep the enemy at bay. Even Higgins had hung up his camera and was adding his meager shooting skills to the fray.

When they touched down in the calf-deep water, Razak and Rico released their grips on Smoke's harness and pulled their Moritas. They ran forward through the water, joining their comrades in the fight. Smoke followed at their heels, staying close.

Doc and Goss seemed to be trying to defend the honor of marauder pilots everywhere. They stood back to back, turning Bug after Bug into a greenish paste with streams of hot lead from their suit's miniguns.

However, the single Tophetti, armed with only a Morita pulse rifle, was keeping up with them in the body count and with far fewer rounds expended. He seemed to be completely oblivious to the damage he was doing to their egos.

"It's style points that really count, T'Phai!" Goss called out. He directed his fire into the trunk of a tree, cutting it in half and dropping it onto a scurrying Spider Bug. "Let's see you try that with your _peck . . . peck . . . peck!_"

"Move to the cave entrance!" Razak belted his orders at them over the roar of the gunfire.

Still maintaining a steady rate of fire, the squad moved up river, the marauders covering the rear. The Bugs realized where the troopers were going and raced quickly through the underbrush in an attempt to cut them off. They jumped out into the river's shallow water between the Roughnecks and the cave's mouth, blocking their path.. This turned out to be their undoing. On the river banks, the Bugs had been spread out and moving through thick undergrowth, making for much more elusive targets. Now, out in the open, bunched up and all coming from one direction, the Bugs were easy pickings.

It was here that the marauders came into their own. They stepped through the middle of the squad, moved to the front and opened up on the Spiders. They started their slaughter at the edges of the river, one marauder pointing his gun left, the other right. This caught any of the Bugs trying to escape out the sides. Then, gradually, they shifted the direction of their fire towards the center of the river, tearing into the main mass of Bugs. Their miniguns cut a bloody swath through the Spider Bug's ranks. Water, Bug juice, and bits of exoskeleton exploded into the air as thousands of rounds of ammunition ate through the swarm. Bugs shrieked in horror as their arms and legs went spinning away from them. Within seconds, the water flowing past the trooper's legs turned to green chum, a result of the carnage happening only twenty yards up stream. They didn't ease up until the last Bug stopped twitching.

Smoke drifting from his guns barrels, Gossard said, "I gotta tell you, I feel vindicated."

Doc seconded his opinion with a "I hear that."

They both looked at T'Phai smugly.

The Tophetti was still unaware of the feud in which he was involved. He watched a chunk of a Spider Bug's head float by and thinking aloud, said, "I wonder about the environmental damage."

Razak turned to the Neo-Dog and said, "What do you think, Smoke? You getting anything?"

"Smell something." Smoke said, trying to track a scent through the stink of gunpowder that still hung in the air. "More Bugs here, but something else, too. Something . . . Not Bug."

"Is it just me," asked Dizzy with a shiver. "or does that sound really creepy?"

Razak ignored her. "In the cave?" he asked the dog.

"Yes." replied Smoke. He wrinkled his snout. "Smell bad."

"Something 'Not Bug'" Goss said. "If we're about to find out that Sparky has turned to the Bug's side and is the cause of all this, I think I'd rather just go home now, thank you."

"We don't want to keep our friends waiting." said Razak. He took point with Smoke at his side and walked into the mouth of the cave. Doc and Gossard once again took their places as the rear guard.

As they passed into the cave's darkness, Doc said, "Ah, caves, tunnels. How I love them."

"I'd almost forgotten how little I miss them." Gossard replied.

The inside of this first cave was actually quite beautiful. It was both tall and wide, the ceiling a good forty feet above their heads and the cavern was sixty feet at it's widest. The rivers that were flowing all around the area had come up against this mountain range, but instead of finding an easy path around, they simply took a few million years and carved their way right through it. At some point, the river had been stronger and had filled his entire cavern clear to the ceiling. It had left it's mark on the limestone that made up the cave walls, shaping them over a thousand millennia into long, flowing, organic curves. It was as if some giant hand had reached into the mountain, and scooped out the insides like a child will do when he plays at the beach. Over time, the river level had dropped until now it was only a shallow strip of water a mere twenty five feet wide. The path where the river ran now was smooth, polished by the constant currents. There was a light coating of gravel on the bottom of the river near the mouth of the cave, which made finding good footing a little tricky, but the gravel thinned out the further into the cave you went until you were walking only on the solid stone of the river bed. In the parts of the cave where the river no longer ran, dripping calcium deposits had grown into stalagmites, some so tall that they reached up and connected with the stalactites that covered the entire ceiling. The sounds of running, trickling, and rippling water echoed back and forth off of the cave walls, blending together and creating almost musical notes. Holes in the roof allowed light that had been filtered through jungle foliage to shine through. It shone past the rock formations and threw twisted shadows up the cave's curved walls.

As far as caves went, Alpha Squad had to admit that this one wasn't too bad. Granted, their past experiences in caves had a way of souring their opinions and making them expect the worst. It was hard to really appreciate the beauty of the place when you were expecting a wave of killer Bugs at any moment.

Smoke continued sniffing his way up the river, following a scent that was drifting to him on air currents from somewhere further up in the cave complex. The cave narrowed to about twenty feet wide at the far end as it turned into a tunnel, leaving only narrow pieces of dry river bed on each side of the river as it wound from side to side. The ceiling dropped down in height until the tunnel was only as high as it was wide. The troopers walked in the middle of the current, their insulated powersuits protecting them from the chill of the water. They passed several tunnel entrances where the river split, part of it taking off in another direction. Farther on there was a bend in the tunnel and here another river came dumping in off of a high ledge, joining the one they were following. This created a waterfall, that it turned out hid a small grotto.

As they passed it, a Spider Bug launched itself through the water and slammed it's weight into Higgins, who went reeling and ended up going face first into the water. As a credit to his dedication as a journalist, he managed to keep his camera above water and pointed in the Bug's general direction the entire time. Dizzy reacted quickly, reaching for her machete rather than raising her Morita. In such close quarters, the Morita would have probably been just as perilous to her squad mates as to the Bug. Still holding the gun by the front grip with her left hand, she pulled the two foot blade from the sheath on her back with her right, stepped forward, and brought it down in a lightning strike on the Bug's head, all in one smooth motion. Half of the creature's skull was sliced away in a clean cut, leaving it's inner cranial organs visible. The Bug kept moving, though, intent on Higgins, who was trying to get to his feet and doing a lot of thrashing around in the water. Rico, the closest to him, grabbed him by the back of his power suit and pulled, hauling him away from the Bug and to his feet.

The damage Dizzy had done to the Bug did have an effect. The legs on the left side of it's body had ceased to function and were just being drug along as it pulled it's body towards Bobby with the legs on it's right side. Dizzy was still after it and the others stayed back, giving her room to maneuver. She drew back her right hand, sidestepped her way around the Bugs dead side, and drove the blade through the intact side of it's head with a stabbing motion. The legs on the right side splayed straight out, spasmodically, and then collapsed out from under the Bug as it died.

While Higgins breathlessly thanked Dizzy for saving his life, Razak flipped down the visor on his helmet and used it's heat sensing abilities to scan the little cave behind the waterfall for any more Bugs. It was empty.

"Sitting out here all alone like that, I'd say it was a sentry." he said. "We must be getting close."

"Smell is getting strong." confirmed Smoke. "Not too much farther." The unnatural smell of whatever they were tracking was clearly bothering the Neo-Dog. He held his head low, his ears were pointed forward, and his tail was curling down between his legs. His body posture suggested a high state of wariness and anxiety.

A few minutes later, the Roughnecks found what they were looking for. The tunnel opened up into a cavern where four river tunnels converged. The cavern was about eighty feet in length and width and twenty five feet in height. The four rivers came together in a shallow pool that flooded the entire cave. The pool was only a couple of feet at it's deepest, and filled with a gravel made up of small river-smoothed pebbles. The river the Roughnecks had followed in was fed from water pouring over the lip of the pool closest to them. There was a small dry ledge around the edge of the pool and on the far side was a large, flat slab of rock that had at some point collapsed out of the ceiling and landed between two of the tunnels. It was higher than the rest of the cave floor and part of it hung out over the water. One side of the slab had a broken edge that abruptly sloped down into one of the rivers coming into the cave.

On top of this rock slab was a heap of Chariot Bugs, probably numbering in the forties. These were the kind of Bugs you would usually see helping a Brain Bug move it's giant, flabby frame around. They weren't that dangerous, though they would swarm you en masse if the Brain was threatened. But there was no Brain Bug to be seen.

Instead, the Chariot Bugs were attending to a large, semi transparent globe that was constructed out of some dried, mucus-like substance. This globe was about eight feet in diameter and bluish green in color. Whatever it was filled with a gave off a faint incandescence, throwing an eerie glow through out the cave. When the troopers shone their helmet lamps directly on it, a blurry, indistinct mass could been seen floating in the center of the globe. It was something living, something that was moving around, undulating and twisting in upon itself. Though they could not be certain, there seemed to be tentacles waving out from this mass. Beneath this shape, at the bottom of the globe, was a lumpy pile of gelatinous material. Though much larger in size and yellowish in color, this goop resembled frog's eggs.

At the sight of all this, Smoke's hackles rose and a deep growl rumbled in his chest. Razak put his hand on the dog's back and tried to shush it, but it was too late.

The Chariot Bugs became aware of the squad's presence immediately and grew quickly agitated. They emitted a high pitched chirping sound and crowded themselves together at the base of the globe, shoving themselves up under it. Within seconds, they had hoisted it onto their backs and were rolling it along onto the backs of the Bugs ahead of them. Working with speed and efficiency, they moved the globe towards the slope that led into the river tunnel. Once the globe had rolled off of a group of Bugs, they would rush around to the front of it, ready to take it's weight again as it continued to roll forward.

Irritated that they had lost the element of surprise, Razak threw caution to the wind and shouted, "Open up on them, apes!"

The squad opened fire, but the Chariot Bugs already had their precious snot bubble rolled down into the tunnel and were fleeing away from them at a high rate of speed. The troopers splashed their way out into the pool, firing after the escaping Bugs and their prized treasure. They managed to hit a couple of the Chariot Bugs, but the rest managed to get their charge around a bend in the tunnel unscathed and out of the line of fire.

Still in hot pursuit, they trudged through the thigh deep water as fast as their power suits would allow. Halfway across the pool, they came dangerously close to being flanked. Gossard, who was bringing up the rear in his marauder, was the first to notice that the frantic chirping of the Chariot Bugs had attracted the attention of the defense team.

"We got Bugs at three o'clock!" he shouted as he turned to meet the threat.

From the tunnel on the far right, three Bugs had emerged. They were of an unfamiliar sub-species, about four feet tall and fourteen feet long. In many ways, they resembled lobsters, with the same general body shape and large crushing claws in the front. Their faces were lobster-like also, with long, three-segmented antennules and eyes at the ends of stalks that could move independently of each other. By arachnid standards, the mouths were rather innocent looking, just some small chewing mandibles, not the giant limb-rending shears of a Warrior Bug. Apparently this Bug's claws were it's weapons and it's mouth was just used for feeding.

The Bugs were light blue in color at the top but this darkened to almost purple on the lower side of their bodies. Besides the two pincers, they had three legs on each side that they used to propel their bodies forward. Unlike many of the Bug species they had encountered, each leg ended in a splayed, two toed foot. The toes were long and flexible, giving the Bug sure footing on the hard rock surfaces.

The abdomen or tail section, which made up about four sevenths of the creature's length, was very different from a lobster's. This part almost looked like an armored inchworm; there was little sets of short, wrinkly legs directly underneath the tail, four at the very front and four in the back. These little legs supported the weight of the tail and were scuttling forward at a much faster rate than the larger front legs, as if they were trying to keep up. The lower part of the tail looked fleshy, even muscular and was a mottled purple. The top of the tail was covered in overlapping, light-blue colored armor plates. In layout, these plates were kind of like the scales on a pine cone. The difference was that each piece of armor on the back of the Bug extended from it's point of origin all the way to the end of it's tail, growing shorter in length and smaller in size the further back you went. The plates nearest the front end of the tail were two feet wide and around eight or nine feet long. The plates near the end of the tail were only about four inches wide and six inches long. The abdomen ended in a tail fan, a set of plates that formed a fin that probably could have pushed the Bug very quickly through deep water.

These Bugs were on a converging path with the Roughnecks and seemed intent on cutting them off from the tunnel that the Chariot Bugs had used to escape.

Goss unleashed the marauder's guns on the lead Bug and the roar of them was deafening in the confined space of the cave. The force of the projectiles striking it's armor made the Bug stumble to the side a little, but seemed to have little other effect. The rounds bounced right off of the Bug's thick exoskeleton and went spinning off in all directions, striking the water of the pool, the cave's walls and ceiling, and even impacting against the Roughnecks themselves. Most of these ricocheting shards of metal struck their powersuit armor, but Rico was grazed across his exposed upper arm and Higgins felt a sharp sting in his chin that started dripping blood.

Seeing this, Razak ordered a cease fire, but Gossard had already noticed what was going on and let off on the guns.

"Sorry about that, everybody." he said, more than a little embarrassed. "That's a new one to me." It was true, not many Bugs of this size could take a blast from the marauder's guns and not be chewed to pieces.

"Well, let's not do that anymore with these guys." said Razak dryly. "Everybody all right?"

"Just a scratch." said Rico. "Higgins?"

Higgins rubbed blood from his chin and said, "Hey, maybe they have an award for journalists wounded in action."

"He's fine." said Dizzy with a sneer. "I've had worse when I clip my toe-nails. Suck it up, weenie."

"Any suggestions on what to do about the crawdads?" asked Razak. "Something tells me that explosives may not be such a good idea in here." He indicated the slab of rock that had fallen from the ceiling with the barrel of his Morita.

While the squad discussed their options, the Bugs continued to scuttle forward, putting themselves between the troopers and the river tunnel. They lined up side by side, and then backed up into the tunnel entrance. Their tail sections flexed in the middle just like an inch worm, the little legs at the front and back of the tail scurrying together and raising the middle of the abdomen up into the air. As these came up, each Bug's armor plates spread out into fan shapes that overlapped the plates of the Bug next to it. With only a little more adjustment, the three Bugs had become a solid, bulletproof shield with three sets of deadly claws facing anything that tried to approach the tunnel opening.

"Maybe we could try an armor-piercing shell" Doc suggested from his marauder.

"They are non-explosive." Goss said. "What do you think, El-Tee?"

Razak evaluated the situation carefully for a moment, and then said, "We can give it a shot. Gossard, you can be the shooter. Everybody else retreat back into the tunnel we came in through. Doc, you use your marauder to shield us from any surprises."

They took their positions and peeked cautiously around Doc's marauder while Gossard selected his ammo and lined up on his target.

"Let's see how they like a little Teflon-coated depleted uranium." he said. He raised one of the marauder's arms, took careful aim at the thorax on the center Bug and fired. The result was, to say the least, pretty scary.

The shell launched from the barrel on the marauder's arm with a concussive boom, crossed the distance to the Bug in an instant and bounced right off of it's armored back. The deflected round spun end over end upward, still packing an incredible amount of force. It hit the ceiling about four feet ahead of Gossard, bounced off again and buried itself in the gravel bed of the pool right between the marauder's feet. When it hit the ceiling, it had knocked loose a half-ton chunk of limestone and the dislodged chunk of rock hit the water directly in front of him. It threw up a massive spray of water that drenched every surface of the cave, sent water surging over the edge of the pool and down the river where the rest of the squad was standing. They had to steady themselves on the tunnel's walls to keep from being thrown off of their feet. Rico grabbed Smoke's harness and for a few seconds, it was unclear to both as to who was keeping who from being swept away.

Gossard's sharp intake of breath was clearly audible over the squad's comlinks. "Wow." he whispered a little shakily. "That was certainly . . . kinetic."

"I believe it's time to let the Tophetti show us how it's done."said Doc, jokingly. "T'Phai?"

"If you are asking for suggestions," said T'Phai. "I have one that might work."

Razak was still trying to get the ringing out of his ears. "As long as it doesn't involve being killed by our own ammunition, I'd love to hear it."

"The marauders carry devices called 'Lizard Lines', do they not?"

The rest of the squad stared at him blankly. They weren't following where he was going, yet.

"Yeah." said Razak, a little hesitantly.

"The tips on the end of these Lizard Lines are designed to drill deep into solid rock so they can support the weight of the marauder, correct?"

Rico caught on, and with a wince said, "Ouch! Bug Lobotomy!"

Razak laughed and said, "T'Phai, I'm taking away that gold star I gave Gossard earlier, and I'm giving it to you."

Over their comlinks, they all heard Gossard mutter, "I'm really starting not to like that guy."

T'Phai's idea worked beautifully. Doc and Gossard lined their marauders up side by side and then painted the Bug's skulls with lasers to show the grapnels where to go. Little panels opened up in the marauder's shoulders and with a WHOOSH, the Lizard Lines were launched. All they had to do at that point was stand back and watch the Shield Bugs have a very bad day. It sounded like a nightmare trip to the dentist. The barbed claws on the tips secured a grip on the Bug's armor and then the drills bit deep, burrowing their way into the skulls.

The Bugs reacted frantically, trying to reach the sources of their agony with claws that could not reach the drills, and were too large and unwieldy to have done any good if they could. They didn't even manage to get a grip on the lizard line itself. Within seconds the drills were through the armor and into the soft insides of the Bugs craniums. They really went wild then. All three Bugs let loose with a panicked squeal. That carefully coordinated shield formation was gone in a moment as they rolled over onto their backs and squirmed and jerked and thrashed their way out into the middle of the cave. Water and gravel were thrown everywhere by the Bug's frenzied movements as they raked the backs of their heads on the bottom of the pool, trying to dislodged the drills. Both marauders had to release their ends of the Lizard Lines to avoid being pulled over as the rolling Bugs wound all the slack around their bodies.

As Rico watched them die, he found the motion of their death throes was not unlike the seizure they had seen from Carl earlier, and be it right or wrong, there was a certain amount of satisfaction in that. There was a poetry to it.

The show was over in only a matter of a minute. One by one, the Bugs wound themselves down until they twitched their last and lay still and all that was left was the gentle lapping of the waves as the pool returned to a state of calm.

There was a moment of stunned silence while the Roughnecks tried to decide how they should feel about what they had just witnessed.

Doc was the first to speak. Quite somberly but with a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, he said, "I know that as a man of medicine it's wrong to take pleasure in the suffering of another creature." His couldn't keep a straight face. "But I have to admit, I could watch that all day long."

Realizing that everyone was having the same conflicting feelings, the rest of the squad relaxed and a few even laughed.

Razak put their minds back on the task at hand. He said, "Alright, you jokers, we got a job to do. We still got a psychic-shriekin', snot-ball-inhabiting whatchamathing to kill. Pull yourselves together. Goss, Doc, how much juice do you have left on your marauders?"

The Roughnecks had been on the ground for nearly an hour and both marauders were running low on power. Rather than risk having to drag two immobile marauders out of these caves, Razak told them to head back down river to rendevous with the Bettie. The rest of the squad would continue on to see where the Chariot Bugs had run off to.

Doc and Goss weren't happy with the situation. "All due respect, sir, but what if you run into more trouble like these Shield Bugs?" said Doc. "I don't like the idea of running off and leaving you guys like this."

"I hear you." Razak replied. "But you won't be doing anyone any good if you run out of juice and go all tin woodsman on us. You start now back and if you don't stop to frolic in the waterfall, you'll be just about running on fumes by the time you get outside. I want both of you to get going, and those are orders, get me?"

Doc sighed with resignation and said, "Yes, sir." Together, the two marauders got themselves turned around and headed back down the river. As they disappeared back the way they had come, Razak walked toward the now open tunnel entrance and called over his shoulder, "Smoke! Find it."

The Neo-Dog took the lead at a fast, loping run, and the squad had to hustle to catch up. As Dizzy passed the corpse of one of the Shield Bugs, she hawked and spat on it, contemptfully.

They didn't have far to go. Within a few minutes, Smoke led them to where the Chariot Bugs had run themselves into a corner. The side tunnel they had taken in their hurry to escape had turned out to be a small cave with a floor that sloped steeply away from the entrance. They were having a very hard time getting the globe rolled back up into the main tunnel.

Once he had located the Bugs, Smoke moved further up the tunnel before turning around and dropping down on his haunches, staying well out of the way. Higgins followed him, filming the transpiring events with his camera from a safe distance.

When the remaining members of Alpha Squad showed up in the cave opening the Bugs had rushed at them in a final attempt to protect their charge. Rico and Razak took positions slightly to the side of the opening and cut down every Bug that tried to come out with their Moritas. Between the two of them, it didn't take long before they had a nice little heap of corpses piling up. While they kept the Bugs in check, Razak yelled for Dizzy and T'Phai to get their flamethrowers ready. When they had the torches primed, the four troopers switched places and twin streams of liquid fire replaced the steady bursts of the Moritas.

"Rico! Frag Grenade. On my count." Razak pulled a grenade of his own from his belt, and looked over at Johnny so they could time the detonation. They pushed and held down the pressure sensitive detonators simultaneously and prepared to throw.

Razak said, "Flores, T'Phai, cover!" As the girl and the Tophetti turned and threw their backs to the wall just outside the cave entrance, Razak and Rico lobbed in their grenades and stepped back. Seconds later, the frag grenades went off and a mixture of shrapnel, fluids, and exoskeleton flew out of the opening and pasted itself to the opposite tunnel wall.

Further up the tunnel, Smoke jumped to his feet with surprise, let out a yip of joy and then reported happily, "Frank is talking. No more shrieking."

Razak smiled at the dog and nodded. Turning back, he said "Rico, check it."

Rico peeked his head around the corner and said, "Clear."

The squad entered the cave, sweeping the floor and making sure nothing was moving. The frag grenades had really done a number on everything in the cave. There were pieces of Chariot Bug strewn all over. There were even pieces of Chariot Bugs protruding through other Chariot Bugs. Each Bug hit by the blast had disintegrated and was turned to deadly shrapnel that had killed yet another Bug. That little cave had been no place to be during those few seconds.

The globe had been shredded and the largest piece of it that they could find was only about eight inches square. It's contents were all over the floor, walls and ceiling of the cave. Some of the fluids were dripping onto the top of the troopers helmets. The thing that had been floating in it was laying in the middle of the floor, mangled and quite dead. The globe and the fluids it had contained had shielded it a little from the grenades, so in terms of damage it wasn't as bad off as the Bugs, but it was dead nonetheless.

Rico poked it with the barrel of his Morita. "What do you suppose it was?' he asked.

"It sure doesn't look like a Bug." said Higgins as he filmed the carnage from the cave entrance.

He was right. It didn't look like any kind of Bug any of them had ever seen. It was somewhere between a starfish and an octopus, reddish-orange in color with black leopard spots. Spread out it would have been around three feet wide from tentacle tip to tentacle tip. In the center of it's body was some kind of an orifice that was lined with what looked like a set of eye lids complete with eyelash-like follicles. This opening was about nine inches long. Instead of an eyeball, between these eyelids hung a limp, wrinkly, fourteen inch long tube with a sucker on the end that was lined with several rows of tiny teeth.

"It probably isn't a Bug." said Razak. "The Bugs have conquered thousands of worlds across the galaxy. They must have whole zoos of creatures like this that they've found out there. Once they discovered what this one could do they must have figured it would be handy to use against us."

Thinking something looked a little funny, Dizzy pulled out her machete and reaching down, used the blade to flip it over. "Look at this." she said as she crouched for a closer view. "It looks like there's actually two of them."

The other creature that she had revealed was the same as the first, only a lighter, almost yellow color. It had the same eyelid-type organ with a tube hanging from it. The two were intertwined, with their tentacles knotted together and their undersides pressed up against each other.

Higgins decided that it was time to start asking the kind of questions a reporter should ask. "What do you think they were doing?"

Dizzy, gave him a sideways glance, watched him for a moment and then shook her head at his naivete. "I'd tell you what I think they were doing, Bobby," she said. "but I don't want to make you blush."

It took Higgins a second to get the hint and then he blushed anyway.

"You suppose all this goop is their eggs?" Rico stirred some of the lumpy slime material that had come out of the bottom of the globe with the toe of his boot.

"If they are, it wouldn't do to leave them laying around." said Razak. "If even one of them is still viable it could make trouble for us down the road. We'll bag these two lovebirds and a couple of eggs for study, and burn the rest."

With plastic bags pulled from packs on their belts, Razak and Rico collected the specimens while T'Phai and Dizzy prepared to burn the contents of the little cave. As she stood waiting for the other troopers to clear out of the cave, Dizzy reflected on the situation, and found that she couldn't help but feel a little sad for the pathetic little aliens that they had killed.

They hadn't meant to cause anybody any harm. The Bugs had simply used what they did naturally as a weapon and the two creatures had unwittingly found themselves in the middle of an intergalactic war. Maybe she was being overly sentimental, but she was kind of glad that while they had been forced to kill the slimy little suckers to save Carl, as least they had been with someone they loved when they died. Then, realizing that she was attributing romantic love to these hideous little creatures, Dizzy had a little shiver, shook off her crazy thoughts and set fire to everything in the cave. There were times when she had to wonder if there might be something wrong with her.

**Tongue Point** - When the shrieking in his head had finally stopped, Carl had tried to sit up, tried to speak, tried to warn somebody of what was going to happen. But he was strapped to his bed, and the heavy doses of drugs they had given him were making it very hard to say anything coherent.

The doctors ignored his babbling while they took his vitals and noted that his brainwave activity had returned to normal.

"You need rest." they told them.

"Bonnasaieees." he slurred at them in an angry tone.

"Yes, Bonsais." said a nurse as she adjusted his pillow. "We'll worry about those later."

"Buenos Aires." is what he had meant to say, but the words that came out were something like what a drunken sheep would say. Psychics the world over were finding themselves in the same position and as the critical moment arrived they struggled frantically against their bonds and shouted, trying to make someone, anyone understand that it was going to happen any second now.

Later, their only consolation was knowing that even if they had managed to get their points across at that moment, not much could have been done to stop the massive loss of life that was about to occur.

It wasn't much of a consolation.

_Much later, after all the investigating and research had been completed, SICON pieced together the events of the following days. The psychic shrieking of the aliens, the scientists decided, only occurred while the creatures were breeding. The Bugs had most likely brought the two creatures to earth in separate little habitats and then, when they were ready, they had put the two together and let nature run it's course. During the whole operation to stop the Shriekers, everyone had assumed that the psychics were the target. But the attack on the psychics was only a diversion. The shrieking hadn't been enough to kill any psychic, it had just been enough to disable them while the Bugs carried out their most devastating sneak attack to date. When it was all over, the Roughnecks would never be the same._

_The Memoirs of Robert Higgins, Fednet Journalist _


	2. part 2: Belling The Cat

Roughnecks: Starship Trooper Chronicles

episode 133: The Longest Day

Part 2: Belling the Cat

By Brian Campo

**This is a work of fan fiction.** It is in no way to be taken as official. If the producers of the series ever see fit to finish it, I would be the first one to plunk down my money to buy a copy. This is simply my way of expressing my affection for a TV series that has brought me many hours of pleasure. This is my version of episode 133, an episode that was planned but never produced by the makers of the series. It is partially based on information about the episode that can be found on the net and stuff that was mentioned on the homefront dvd commentaries. I also borrowed from the original novel for some ideas. The original episode would not have played out like the one I have written. This is just how I would have done it. Hope you like it.

_The Roughnecks had just completed a high priority seek and destroy mission in the jungles of Guatemala and though we were a little worse for wear, we had all made it back alive. Our transport, the 'Bouncin' Bettie' was in a holding pattern now, circling over Central America while Lieutenant Razak was debriefed about the results of our mission. SICON's central command had a lot of balls in the air at the moment so we knew it would take them a little while before they decided where the Roughnecks would be needed next. That meant we had a few moments to regroup, restock our ammo, and patch up our wounded._

Yes, there had been casualties on our mission; two of our number had been injured in the heat of battle. The situation on the ground had been very chaotic, and with so much going on, I find I cannot recall exactly how those injuries were received. However, I can tell you this. I am proud to say that both Sergeant Rico and I were able to pull ourselves together, push through the pain, and complete the mission. But that's just the way we were. There would be no med-evacs for us. We both knew we had a job to do, and we were going to see to it that it got done. And it wasn't about being a hero, or trying to get a medal, all we cared about was being there for our fellow troopers. There was no way we were going to let a little wound keep us on the bench while the rest of the squad went on to face the Bug horde.

Besides, to us, our scars were our medals, and we wear them proudly.

The Memoirs of Robert Higgins, Fednet Journalist

The Bettie's Medical Bay was small, only about nine feet by nine feet with a twelve foot ceiling. It's walls, ceiling and cabinet structures were all made of white molded plastisteel. There were no sharp edges in the room, everything was rounded off to prevent injuries if the retrieval ship went through turbulent weather or if the pilot was forced to pull any wild maneuvers on a hot dust off. The tiles on the floor were made of the same material and the entire floor sloped slightly toward a drain in the center of the room. The tiles were all textured in such a way as to provide good footing even if the floor was wet.

Maybe there wasn't much elbow room, but the medical bay was a fine example of optimum space utilization. There were three beds/examination tables in the room that were hanging off of three of the room's four walls. When not in use, these beds could be folded up into the wall, making for more room. Supports that could be pulled down out of the walls above these beds allowed for up to nine stretchers to be secured in the medical bay's limited space. The fourth wall was taken up by the door, a sink and storage cabinets that held as much medical equipment and supplies as could be crammed into them.

The room was a little crowded at the moment. On the bed to the left of the doorway lay Frank Bennett, a K-9 corpsman who was recovering from a drug induced coma. He was a complete stranger to the Roughnecks, as he had been unconscious since he had been brought on board. But if the high esteem his partner held him in was any indication, they figured he must be one heck of a guy.

Sitting on the floor next to him was his partner. His name was Smoke, and he was a Neo-Dog, a three hundred and fifty pound creature that could have made any room feel small. Smoke had gone straight to Frank's side as soon as he had returned from the mission with the Roughnecks and he didn't seem to have any intention of leaving it again. For reasons of hygiene, he really shouldn't have been allowed in the medical bay, but no one had the heart to kick him out of the room. As big as he was, he couldn't help but be in the way, but they all just did their best to step around him.

Standing next to Smoke was Phil Walsh, a doctor from the K-9 Corps training facility in Phoenix, Arizona. He had come along to help care for Frank while the Roughnecks and Smoke had chased after a mysterious Bug weapon that had disabled all of the K-9 corps' Neo-Dog handlers and all of SICON's psychics. The threat was over now, but the doctor continued to monitor Frank for signs of any permanent brain damage the weapon might have caused.

Sitting on the bed on the adjoining wall was Johnny Rico, Alpha Squad's sergeant. He was being tended to by Corporal Richard "Doc" LaCroix, the squad's field medic. Doc was doing the best he could in such close quarters to patch up a superficial injury on Rico's arm.

The third bed was taken up by Robert Higgins, a Fednet journalist who had been embedded with Alpha Squad to cover the Bug War since it had started back on Pluto. He had minimal combat training and was much handier with a camera than with a Morita smart rifle. At the moment, he was watching with some trepidation as Doc prepared to stitch up Rico's wound.

Doc pulled the two sides of the cut together with his thumb and index finger and with his other hand, carefully started running the little stitcher machine down the length of it. He slid his thumb and finger along the cut, holding the edges together just ahead of the machine as it knitted them together. The medic had rubbed some antiseptic-anesthetic into the wound before starting, and if Johnny could feel the stitcher's little needles working on him, he gave no indication.

Rico had been hit with friendly fire on their mission when bullets fired by Gossard's Marauder had ricocheted off of a Shield Bug. Higgins had taken some shrapnel at the same time, receiving a nick in his chin that had bled for a while, but was not that serious.

But that did not mean that he couldn't take it seriously. Despite his years spent with Razak's Roughnecks, a squad who had faced more than their fair share of battle, this was the first time the young journalist had shed blood. At one point or another, every other Roughneck had been wounded and they had the scars to show it. But because they tended to keep Higgins out of harm's way, up until now he had made his way through the Bug War unscathed. Finally, after all this time, he had received his first battle scar. He couldn't help feeling a little giddy about that, no matter how insignificant the wound.

From the examination table where he was sitting, he had a clear view under the stitcher and could see the little needles punching and weaving their way through Rico's skin. The sight of it made him feel a little sick to his stomach. It had always been that way with him when it came to needles. The idea of those things going to work on his chin made the hair on the back of his head stand straight up. On the other hand, the idea of needing to have stitches on his wound did have a certain appeal. A wound that required stitches was a little more significant than something you just stuck a band-aid on. But was it worth the very real possibility of him fainting when Doc came at him with the stitcher?

Clearing his throat nervously, he said, "What do you think, Doc? Is this going to need some stitches?"

Doc choked off a laugh and then turned his face away from Higgins for a couple of seconds. When he turned back, he said, "I'm pretty sure we could take care of it with a little piece of tissue paper. But if you want, I can put a bandage on it when I get done with Rico here."

A little red in the face, Higgins looked away from Doc and Rico's matching smirks. His eyes wandered across the little medical bay, past the unconscious K-9 corpsman and his Neo-Dog and came to rest on Dizzy. She was leaning on the storage cabinet next to the doorway, her arms crossed beneath her breasts, staring at him with cold disdain.

Dizzy didn't really have any good reason to be in the medical bay. Other than the usual feelings of soreness and tiredness that everyone got after a mission, there wasn't anything physically wrong with her. Had she been asked, she would have freely admitted that she was shirking her duties. There was plenty of post-mission clean up and maintenance that needed to be done out in the Bettie's cargo bay. But the way that she saw it was that if Higgins' nicked chin was good enough to get him out of work then her general all over sore feeling was good enough, too. She would just hang out and take up space until Doc was done with Higgins and Rico and then they could all attack the jobs that need to be done together.

Now, however, she saw a way that she could pitch in and lend a hand.

"Tell you what, paper-boy." she said as she pushed herself off of the wall. "I'll put a bandage on there for you." The look of antipathy she had shown him earlier was gone, replaced by a sisterly smile. Unfortunately, none of Dizzy's brothers were there to warn him how much worse this was.

"Well, uh, thanks, Dizzy. That's . . . well, that's very nice of you." Foolishly, he still believed in the basic goodness of mankind and instead of running like he should have, he just sat and watched while she reached over the sink and picked up a box of bandages.

"Think nothing of it." she said while she took out one. "Us Roughnecks have to take care of each other, ya know. I mean, what kind of squad would we be if we didn't take care of our _wounded_?" Was that sarcasm he had heard when she said the last word?

She was coming towards him now, and something about the look on her face induced in him the strong urge to flee. Her smile was a little _too_ sweet, and none of it's friendliness was evident in her eyes.

"I've always said the same thing." he croaked, his fear making his voice sound a little strangled.

Dizzy pulled off the band-aid's sterile wrap and then ignoring Higgins' flinch, reached up and with great care, stretched the bandage over his chin.

"There, now." she said, as she gently smoothed it out. "That mean old boo-boo is covered."

"Heh." He chuckled and started to relax. "You sound like my mom, Diz."

"Do I?" she said, her tone comforting. The look on her face was almost motherly. She held his head in her hands and ran her thumbs over the bandage, still smoothing it, a little more firmly this time. "And how old were you the last time she did this? Nineteen?"

He flinched when she rubbed past his cut. "Easy, Dizzy. That hurt."

"I'm sorry." she told him. "I just want to make sure that it won't come off." She rubbed past the cut again, quite forcefully now. He tried to pull away, but the ends of her fingers secured a grip behind his jaw while she began to grind her thumb right into the wound. "Wouldn't want it coming off and having you scare small children with your horrible disfigurement, would we?"

"Ow." he cried. "Ow!"

His eyes looked to Rico and Doc for help, but they were just standing there, watching with amusement. "Aaaah, ow, stop! Please!"

She was grinding his cut so hard that it would have hurt even if there hadn't been a cut. It hurt so bad, his eyes were watering. Sadly, the only one who seemed to care what was happening to him was Smoke the Neo-Dog, who let out a concerned little whimper. Finally deciding he'd had enough, but mainly just not wanting to upset the dog, Dizzy leaned forward and planted a light kiss on his chin. Then she forcefully shoved his head back and let him go.

Higgins covered his chin with one hand while he rubbed at his watering eyes with the other.

"Now, doesn't that feel better?" Dizzy asked him. "Did Dizzy help Bobby's boo-boo?"

"What was that for, Diz?" he sniffled.

Dizzy looked to the ceiling and threw her hands in the air in mock exasperation. "You try to help a guy. . ."

"I hope you learned something there, Bobby." said Rico.

"Yeah? What's that?" Higgins asked, sourly.

"If Dizzy's being nice to you, it's best just to run for cover."

That earned one of Dizzy's raucous laughs. She knelt down by the Neo-Dog, and apologized for upsetting it. Smoke's drooping ears seemed to indicate that he wasn't all that comfortable with her being that close.

Doc put down his stitcher and told Rico he was done. Johnny tested his arm, moving it around and seeing if there was any pulling on the stitches.

"Feels good." he said to Doc.

Doc nodded and said, "It'll be good as new in no time."

While Doc started putting away his medic gear, Rico turned to the Neo-Dog and said, "How is Frank doing, Smoke?"

Smoke looked over at his handler, wagged his tail a couple of times and said, "Sleeping. But good sleeping."

The Roughnecks had stopped the Bug weapon that had incapacitated both the Neo-Dog handlers and SICON's psychics, but it would be hours before any of them would be functional again. The doctors treating them had been forced to administer huge doses of tranquilizers to counteract the seizures caused by the weapon and the effects of all those drugs would not be wearing off for a while yet.

"That's good." Rico told him. "Frank's going to be so proud when he hears how you helped us save him."

Smoke wagged his tail some more, happy with the idea. Rico was right; without the help of the Neo-Dog, they never would have been able to find the weapon.

"You let us know if he wakes up, ok?"

"Yes." said Smoke.

Rico walked for the door, saying, "I going to see if anyone has heard from Carl, yet."

Carl Jenkins, Alpha Squad's own personal psychic, had been taken out by the weapon just like all the others. Thinking he was better off under a doctor's care, they had left him behind at a military infirmary in northwestern Oregon. So far, there had been no word from him or about him since they had returned from their mission.

Higgins, Doc and Dizzy followed Rico out of the medical bay and into the Bettie's main cargo hold where they found the rest of Alpha Squad. Gossard and T'Phai were busy servicing the two Marauder suits, getting all their weapon systems reloaded, their fuel cells replaced and running system tests to spot any parts that needed replacing. The suits needed a lot of maintenance between missions and the troopers were hurrying to get it done before SICON called with their next Bug hunt. Doc joined in, pulling a maintenance cover off the back of the APE Marauder and looking at the gauges inside to check the fluids.

"Any word about Carl?" Rico called out to them.

T'Phai paused from his work for a moment to say, "Regrettably, we have heard nothing yet, Rico."

Rico clenched his jaw and let out an irritated little growl. "The El-Tee still on the horn with command?"

The Tophetti answered in the affirmative before going back to his work. He was trying with some difficulty to use a ratchet designed for human hands with his three fingered, clawed ones. T'Phai was persistent in finding ways to get a job done, though, so it wouldn't have done any good for anyone else to offer to do it for him.

Bobby looked at his watch, and realized how much time had passed since they had come back from their mission. They had been on board for nearly twenty five minutes. He had obligations as a journalist that he needed to attend to.

"I'm not going to be able to help out for a little while, guys." he told his squad mates. "Fednet duties call."

"Always finding a way out of work. . ." observed Gossard while he used a spray can to lube one of the Marauder's hydraulic pistons.

Doc nodded in agreement and wisecracked, "I think his camera came with a license to lounge."

"Hey, it's not like that." Higgins' mid-western farm boy work ethic was going into spasms at the mere insinuation. "I'm going to help. I just need to upload all the video footage from the mission and it's going to take a little while. I'll pitch in as soon as it's done, I promise."

Gossard and Doc exchanged devilish grins, delighted with Higgins' protests.

"They're just yanking your chain, Bobby." Rico told him. "Go do what you got to do. There will still be plenty that needs to be done when you get back."

Higgins looked at Doc and Goss and the villainous mischief on their faces confirmed what Rico had said. He took it in his usual good-humored way, cracking a smile and shaking his head as he left to go retrieve his equipment..

Figuring that there were more than enough people working on the Marauders, Rico and Dizzy found other things that needed doing. There were pieces of Bug juice encrusted Powersuit armor that need to be cleaned and checked for damage. The Powersuits themselves needed to be recharged. Jump Jet fuel cells needed replacing. They had spent a lot of ammo on their last mission and all those empty Morita clips would have to be reloaded.

Higgins returned with his gear a few minutes later. It was clear that there were no hard feelings, because he had stopped by the Bettie's food pantry and brought snacks for everyone. For the humans, there were power bars and fruit drinks. For T'Phai, there were some kind of Tophetti M.R.E. packet with a greenish slush on the inside and funny symbols printed on the outside. Higgins didn't know much about the Tophetti diet, so he had just randomly picked something out of the crate and hoped T'Phai would like it. Whether it was an appropriate snack food or not, T'Phai accepted it just as graciously as the rest of the squad had.

"I thank you, Bobby." said T'Phai. "I was feeling a little famished." He pulled a feeding tube from the front of his helmet and inserted it into the little food pouch. A tube on the inside of his helmet extended up with an electronic whirring sound until it came up to the height of his mouth. He used it to suck up the liquified mush in the pouch. After a few seconds of gulping, he took his mouth off the feeding tube, sighed contentedly and said, "Ah, delicious."

The rest of the squad thanked Higgins, too. He shrugged and said, "No problem."

He sat down on a bench and prepared to upload his footage by powering up both his camera and a small hand held computer. When both were up and running, he connected a cord from the camera to the computer and started transferring all of the video files over to the computer's hard drive.

Meanwhile, the rest of the squad continued to work, but took little breaks intermittently to chug juice and bite off chunks of their power bars. Ideally, they would have had time to sit down and have a solid meal, but they knew from experience that this might be as good as it was going to get. Maybe if there was time later they could eat something a little more substantial. But for the time being, they were going to cram whatever fuel that was available into their bodies.

The mood in the cargo bay was light and the squad mates continued to rib each other good-naturedly while they worked. Gossard had started it by trying to tease Higgins about his chin, suggesting that maybe he hadn't mastered shaving yet. Surprisingly, it was Dizzy who came to Higgins' defense.

"Wasn't it you that did the shaving?" she pointed out.

Goss sighed with a shake of his head and then said, "Yeah, well a barber has got to have the chance to perfect his technique. I get so few volunteers."

Rico jumped in, proposing, "Maybe Goss could put little Bug shaped symbols on one side of his Marauder to show how many Bugs he's killed and then trooper shaped ones on the other side."

Gossard took it in stride, knowing his team mates weren't serious and even one upped Rico's suggestion saying, "I could even have different symbols for different ranks. For instance, the higher the rank, the bigger the head."

"TSSSSS." said Doc. "Burn."

"Ha, ha." Johnny dead-panned while the rest of the squad had a good laugh. "They hang mutineers, you know."

"Heh, heh" chuckled Dizzy. "Mutiny on the Bettie."

When his computer had finished transferring files, Higgins tapped an icon on the touch screen to connect to Fednet's upload servers. He waited for a few moments for it to connect and then was surprised with an error message stating that there might be congestion on the network that was preventing a connection.

This was unusual. In fact, the only times he could remember ever having trouble connecting to the network was during the first few hours of the invasion of Klendathu and during the Bug's opening attack here on Earth. Both times, hundreds of reporters had tried to upload their stories all at the same time and had slowed the network to a crawl. Nothing that big should have been happening at that moment. Sure, there were missions being carried out all over the planet by hundreds of M.I. squads, but they should be being completed and reported at different times, not all at once. Figuring it must be some kind of glitch, he tried connecting again.

His computer and camera almost slid off of the bench when the Bettie rolled with a change in direction. The rest of the squad reached out to grab something to steady themselves and looked at each other with raised eyebrows. The Bettie had been flying in circles since they had returned from their mission. A change in direction meant that Razak must have been given the orders for their next mission. They could expect to be hearing from him soon. They moved quickly to finish up their tasks before he called for them.

The team nearly had everything stowed away and in a state of combat readiness when the intercom clicked on and Lt. Razak's voice spoke over it. "Alpha Squad to the briefing room, on the double."

Setting down their tools, the Roughnecks headed toward the door at the front of the cargo bay. The Bettie was designed, like most Fleet craft, with optimum space utilization in mind. The passage way leading forward was narrow, forcing you to walk at a slight angle to pass through it without bumping your shoulders on the pipes running along the walls. At the end of the hallway was a staircase that was so steep it would have been more appropriately called a ladder. They climbed up it, and through the airlock that could seal the front of the ship off from the back. At the top of these stairs was a landing that had three doors. To their right was the door to the pilot's quarters, directly ahead was the airlock to the cockpit and to the left was the doorway for the briefing room.

Rico entered the briefing room first, pushing the door in and holding it open for his squad mates. They filed in after him, spreading out around the table that occupied the middle of the small, dimly lit room. Rico stayed near the door, and Dizzy found a piece of wall a foot or two from him to lean on.

"I wonder what kind of lovely vacation SICON has lined up for us this time?" Gossard was joking.

"It doesn't matter to me." said Doc. "As long as it's some place warm and the mosquitos are regular sized, I'm in."

The briefing room was eight foot long by ten feet wide and the low six foot four ceiling forced T'Phai to stoop when he came in. Most of the space in the room was taken up by the table and the bank of communications equipment at the far end.

It was never a comfortable room to be in, and not just because of it's small size. The heat coming off of the equipment combined with the sound proofing insulation kept the room at a stifling eighty degrees Fahrenheit. The longer you sat in the room, the more you would sweat and the muggier the room would get. In typical military fashion, the room had been crammed into the ship's design as an afterthought and there was no room for any kind of cooling system. They left the door open to alleviate some of the discomfort.

Lt. Razak was standing at the head of the table, his arms crossed over his chest, waiting for them all to find a place to stand. There were some chairs around the table but not enough for everyone, and anyone who had sat down would have been taking up what little room there was for those that were left standing.

"Sir, have you heard anything about Carl?" Rico asked.

Razak shook his head. "We got bigger problems."

Razak's tone gave Rico pause. For the first time since he had walked in the room, he stopped and really looked at his lieutenant. What he saw there gave him a sinking feeling in his belly. Something about Razak's demeanor gave Rico the impression that there was something very wrong. There was a tension in his posture, and his jaw was clenched. His face even looked a little pale.

"Sir? Is everything ok?"

"Just a second, Sergeant. Let everybody get situated." There was the slightest hint of a tremor in his voice, something Rico had never heard before.

The rest of the squad was picking up on the bad vibe now. The joking and chatter came to a sudden halt and all eyes were on the Lieutenant.

Seeing he had their undivided attention, Razak turned to the bank of monitors at his back and pressed a few buttons on a touch screen. One of the monitors switched to a view of Carmen Ibanez, in the cockpit.

"Lieutenant Ibanez, this is Lieutenant Razak again."

"What can I do for you?"

"Well, I gotta tell the squad something, and I would like for you to listen in, since it effects you, too. In fact, I think it would probably be best if you put the ship on autopilot for the next couple of minutes."

There was a beat before she replied with a "Yes, sir." On the screen, she leaned forward and flipped some switches, then sat back and looked directly at the camera.

Razak took a couple of moments to carefully choose his words, and then said, "About half an hour ago the Bugs hit the city of Buenos Aires."

Looks of shock were immediately evident on everyone's faces. Stunned silence reigned for a second or two, then everyone was talking at once.

"What happened?" blurted Rico.

"How bad?" Dizzy was asking at the same time.

"Is it bad, sir?"

"What kind of attack?"

He held up his hand to quiet them, and then continued. "We don't have all the answers, yet. But as far as we can tell right now, a Transport Bug crashed itself right into the middle of downtown. There are reports of some kind of massive explosion and hundreds of smaller impacts all around the city that may have been caused by meteors dragged along by the Bug's gravitational pull. It's too early to say how bad the damage is, but I believe it's a safe estimate to say the dead will be numbered in the millions. But at the moment, the smoke is so thick we can't get an accurate assessment of how big the impact was."

He turned on another of the monitors and brought up a video feed coming out of the city.

The first piece of footage was an aerial view from out over the Silver River Estuary. Rico could only see the buildings closest to the waterfront; everything else was concealed under a massive cloud of smoke. Buenos Aires was home to some of the tallest buildings in the world, and the tops of at least some of them should have risen up above the smoke cloud. They were nowhere to be seen and he could only assume that they were gone. His best estimate was that the cloud was stretched out over twenty square miles of the city and it looked like it was expanding by the second. More scenes followed, all depicting a city in devastation. Every few seconds they would switch to some new scene of horror. People running. Smoke. People screaming. Fire. A building falling. Bugs. A sideways view of a street with what may have been the camera man's hand extending into the frame. The camera was focused on the hand, but blurry human shapes in the background were firing automatic weapons at blurry Bug shapes.

Rico felt himself go numb. As he watched, he was only half cognizant of Dizzy moving closer, until she was standing only inches in front of him. The smell of the berry scented shampoo she had used that morning drifted into his nose and the mixture of this pleasing smell and the horrific images playing before his eyes gave him a surreal sense that this all wasn't really happening. Johnny put his hand on her shoulder, and she reached up with her own and squeezed it. He felt like the world was spinning wildly out of control, and this simple human contact was the only anchor keeping him from being flung off of it.

"This attack is ongoing." said Razak. "As we speak, other Transport Bugs are landing in the middle of the smoke cloud, presumably to offload troops. In response, SICON is gearing up for a massive ground assault and troops are being called in from all over the world. I gave Ibanez the coordinates earlier, and we are already en route with an E.T.A. of about two hours."

With the press of a few buttons, he switched the screen from the video of the city to a map of Buenos Aires. Continuing on, he said, "Because we are closer than most, we'll be some of the first troops in. Central Command wants us to take territory by the waterfront and hold it, first the airport and then as we get reinforced, the bordering docks and ship yards."

"Sir, why are we just taking the waterfront?" asked Dizzy. "Shouldn't we be taking the fight straight to the Bugs?"

Rico's thinking was along the same lines. "Yeah, what about all those people?"

Razak explained, saying, "As ugly as it sounds, SICON considers Buenos Aires to be a meat grinder right now and thinks it will chew up any individual squad that goes in there. Only by building up forces do they have any hope of hitting the Bug's back in any significant way. For that to happen, we need to secure room for the troop transports to land. The quicker we do that, the sooner we'll be able to help the people in the city. Trust me, everyone wants to hit the bugs back fast and hard, but we can't be stupid or we won't be helping anyone."

He looked around the little room at his squad, trying to gauge how each of them were handling the situation. They all looked a little dazed. Finding out that millions of your fellow human beings had been snuffed out in an instant tended to have that effect on people. Dizzy and Rico looked like they had been punched in the gut. That was their hometown that was burning. They had spent the last few years doing their best to hold back the tide of the Bug Armies, trying to prevent an event such as this from happening. He understood how they must be feeling. How pointless all that sacrifice must now seem. They were so young, just kids, really. Maybe they had seen a lot since they had enlisted, more than most adults twice their age. But they had never faced anything that could have prepared them for something like this. He worried that they might fall apart in the face of all this . . .horror.

Razak cleared his throat and then he spoke again. Some of the edge had come off of his voice, letting it take on an almost fatherly tone. "I realize that some of you, like me, have friends or family in the city. You're probably worried sick about them, and frankly, I don't blame you. The next few days will probably be the worst you'll ever see in your entire lives. But right now, we have a job to do and we can't let our worry get in the way of that job getting done. The way I see it, the only way we're going to get through this is if you remember that you don't have just one, but two families. One of them is out there somewhere, and one is right here, standing beside you. Lean on your team-mates if you need to, and be strong so they can lean on you, too. It's my belief that if we stick together, and remember who we are, we can get through this." He let those words sink in for a moment, then said, "You get me, Apes?"

They were all in too much shock to reply with much enthusiasm, but they managed to say, "We get you, Sir."

"Good. Now, I want you to all suit up. The smoke in Buenos Aires is going to be fouling the air, so I want everyone in H.E. (Hostile Environment) Powersuits. When you're done getting your suits on, I want this ship stripped of every last piece of ammunition, weaponry, equipment, food and medical supply. If it ain't bolted down, it comes with us. I want every bit of it stacked and secured on pallets by the rear loading ramp, ready to be offloaded as soon as we land. Once we're on the ground, the ship needs to be offloaded fast so Ibanez can scoot on out of there. Fleet's going to have her running troops and supplies. Questions?"

No one had any so Razak said, "Alright, then. You've got our orders. Move out."

As the Roughnecks went to work, the Bettie screamed across the darkening sky in a bee line for Argentina, leaving sonic booms in her wake. Behind them, the sun was heading for the horizon, but their longest day was nowhere near it's end.

* * *

Immediately after leaving the briefing room, the team had unpacked their Powersuits and put them on, but they had all opted to leave their helmets off. A helmet only took a couple of seconds to put on and seal, so for the time being, they would savor breathing fresh air until the last possible moment.

The Marauders still needed a little work done on them before they would be combat ready, so Doc and Gossard went to work on them while the rest of the squad started making stacks of supplies. By the time the Marauders were finished twenty minutes later, two pallets were stacked six feet high and ready to be secured. A third was well under way. Goss and Doc switched over to securing the stacks, cinching them to their pallets with nylon straps and then anchoring the pallets to the floor with cables. Meanwhile, T'Phai and Higgins were emptying out the food pantry and medical bay while Rico and Dizzy hauled out the contents of the Bettie's ammunition magazine.

The two of them came out of the magazine's door, each holding on to one end of a crate full of grenades. The crate weighed in excess of three hundred pounds, but with the Powersuit's strength enhancing abilities, it felt more like fifty. Either one of them could have handled the weight, but the size of the crate would have been cumbersome for just one person.

Dizzy was talking in a low voice, saying, "First my brother goes missing, then my whole hometown gets smashed to smithereens, and maybe my family with it? Is it possible that this entire intergalactic war is somehow about the Bugs targeting me specifically?"

"I'm sure it must feel that way." Johnny said.

Dizzy failed to notice that she didn't seem to have Rico's full attention. "As if I didn't have enough to worry about with just my brother being missing. That's been eating at me for months and now the rest of my family is MIA, too. I feel like my guts are tying themselves in knots. Just how much am I supposed to be able to handle, anyway?"

"I'm sure they're fine." Johnny said flatly as he contemplated the cargo bay's grated floor.

"What if they're not? Mom, Dad, my little brothers, they could all be gone. And even if they're not dead already, the bugs could be chewing through the door any second. And there's nothing I can even do about it."

There was no response from Johnny, but Dizzy kept right on talking. "I should have written when we had that break in Oregon. I hadn't had a chance to send my parents any word for weeks and the first break we get I use to watch cartoons. I mean, what was I thinking? Pretty stupid, huh?"

She glanced over at Rico and saw that he was staring off into space. As they continued to heft the crate across the floor, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. She thought back over the last twenty minutes and realized that Rico hadn't said much since they had returned from the briefing room.

"Hey, Rico! You ok?" she asked. "You've been really quiet."

He looked over at her and then shrugged. "I'll be fine."

"Worried about your family, huh?" she said.

Rico looked back at her and the expression on his face made it clear to her that not only was he worried, he was feeling guilty about something, too.

"What is it?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

"I don't really want to talk about it."

"You know I'm going to wheedle it out of you. Why don't you save us both a lot of trouble and just spit it out."

He knew what she was saying was probably true but still seemed to be debating whether to tell her. After a couple of seconds, he let out a sigh of resignation and then he blurted out his confession."I haven't talked to my mom or dad for years."

"What?!" She almost dropped her end of the crate. From her expression, you would have thought that he had just confessed to eating a kitten for breakfast.

He avoided making eye contact with her. "You heard me." he said. "Haven't spoken to them since right before Pluto. Dad and I were arguing about my joining up and he just wouldn't let it go. I stopped talking to him and never got around to starting back up again.."

She stared at him, agape. "How did I not know that? All this time, I didn't know you weren't talking to your parents."

"I didn't talk about it." said Rico. "I avoided talking about it. I think I knew you would have given me flack about it."

She almost tore into him for that, wanting to tell him that she would have been right to have done so. But instead, she thought about how this must be hurting him, and she could only feel compassion for him.

"Oh, Rico. You idiot. What were you thinking?" Her words were harsh, but her tone was all sympathy.

They heaved the crate of grenades up onto a stack of other crates and headed back to the magazine.

"I know I've been an idiot." he said. "I know that now, anyway. I was going to send him a vid-mail when we were in Oregon but the whole business with Carl and the other psychics started and I never got the chance."

She shook her head, as she contemplated the situation he had put himself in. "Oh, man! And to think I was feeling bad cause I hadn't sent my mom a vid-mail for a few weeks. Years? You are going straight to hell, buddy." 

"You don't have to tell me, Diz. I already feel like a heel." Shoulders sagging under the weight of his guilt, he walked into the magazine ahead of her.

As she watched him walk away, she could have kicked herself. Me and my big mouth, she thought. She ran to catch up with him, saying, "I'm sorry. That was cruel. I know it must be just killing you and it was stupid of me to say it." She stopped just inside the magazine door, her thoughts going back to her own family.

"What are we going to do if they're dead, Rico?" She said it with little more than a whisper.

Johnny closed his eyes and reached up with one gloved hand to rub at his temple. Then he shook his head, almost as if the question angered him. "I don't want to think about that right now." he said. "I can't think about it. Every time I do, I feel like I'm going to lose it. So I'm just going to focus on getting my work done."

Showing his resolve to do just what he had said, he took two quick steps across the room and reached for a crate of claymore mines. Dizzy moved up behind him, and very hesitantly, reached out to put a hand on his arm. He looked down at her hand, then turned to look at her, and the anguish he was feeling was written all over his face. She pulled him to her and they hugged as close as was possible for two people wearing Powersuits. Dizzy closed her eyes, pushed everything else from her mind and just tried to concentrate on how good it felt to be in his arms. She was not alone in this. They both found comfort in one another's embrace, and neither of them were in a hurry to break it off.

It would be several more minutes before they came back out of the magazine.

* * *

When Razak entered the cargo bay forty minutes later, he was pleased to see the last of the supplies being strapped down to pallets. The contents of the ship had made up seven stacks, each six foot square. Because of Rico's careful stocking of the ship while they were in Oregon, Alpha Squad would be bringing plenty to the party when they reached the airport.

Like the rest of the Roughnecks, Razak had also donned his Powersuit. Under one arm he was carrying his helmet and in the opposite hand he carried a holographic projector. He found himself an open piece of floor and squatted down.

"Roughnecks, assemble on me." he said.

They dropped whatever they were doing to gathered around their lieutenant.

"I just got done talking with command. Looks like we're going to be going inside the city today, after all."

He put the projector on the floor and turned it on. From the lense on it's top sprang a three-dimensional map of Buenos Aires.

"Sector Delta one-niner." he said to the projector, and it zoomed in on a specific part of the city near the water front. "Here's the airport."

The area he indicated was right on the waters edge, a strip of open ground two miles long by half a mile wide, running from southeast to northwest. On the map they could make out the airport's terminals, hangers, and single runway.

"Somewhere over here," He pointed to an area southeast of the airport. "is a mobile battery of Plasma Bugs that's causing trouble for the transport ships trying to land at the airport. They've already managed to hit one medium sized transport. Luckily, it was able to head back north and land at the airport on Martin Island. But until those Plasma Bugs are neutralized, SICON's not letting any transport larger than a retrieval ship near the city. Anything larger won't have the maneuverability to slip through."

Rico leaned in for a closer look at the map and then asked, "Why isn't Fleet just taking them out, sir?"

"They've tried a couple of times, but the smoke covering the city is making it impossible to get a bead on them. The Bugs keep moving after they fire off their Plasma. By the time Fleet has calculated where the shots came from and the planes get there with their bombs, the Bugs are in a different spot. At this point, the only way to be sure to hit the Bugs is to carpet bomb a couple square miles of the city. There's a lot of big buildings down in that area and there are probably people hiding in them. There's a good chance that there's already been civilian casualties. Fleet's not willing to risk anymore until they're sure they're going to hit the Bugs."

"So . . . what?" asked Gossard. "We go in with Javelins and mini-nuke the Bugs?"

"Negative." said Razak. "With all the smoke in the city, visibility is going to be down to less than a hundred feet. For us to get close enough to target a Bug with a Javelin, we would have to be well within the blast radius. What we get to do is go in and tag each Plasma Bug with a radio beacon that Fleet can use to precision target them."

"I'm starting to not like the sound of this." said Dizzy.

"Oh, it gets better." replied Razak. "Just wait 'til you hear how we're going to do it. Two of you will be wearing Spook Suits and sneaking up to plant the beacons by hand."

At the mention of Spook Suits a chill ran up the Roughneck's collective spines.

"Who are the lucky troopers that get to wear the Spook Suits?" asked Gossard, apprehensively.

"Rico and Flores."

Everyone else breathed a sigh of relief.

"Great." said Rico with some forced enthusiasm. "Aren't we the lucky ones?"

"My flesh is crawling just thinking about it." said Dizzy. She shuddered at the thought.

"Everyone hates wearing them, but somebody's got to." Razak told them. "I need someone fast and quiet and you two fit the bill. T'Phai can't fit the suits. Higgins couldn't sneak up on my deaf old Grandma. Doc and Gossard are both getting old and they creak when they move. The Bugs would hear them coming from a mile away."

Gossard leaned over and whispered in Doc's ear, "Is that true? I feel like maybe I should be offended."

Doc whispered back. "If it means we don't have to wear the creepy-crawly-long-john's, I'll go along with it."

"Good point." said Goss.

Meanwhile, Razak was continuing to explain the mission. "While you're planting the beacons, the rest of us will be moving along the opposite side, keeping the Plasma Bugs and any escorts they have distracted with harassing fire. It'll be Moritas only out there and you need to be using precise, controlled fire. Rico and Dizzy will be moving around in our field of fire, so be sure of what you're shooting at before you squeeze one off. We want to make lots of noise, so flash-bangs are okay, just make sure you call 'em when you throw 'em so we all have time to duck and cover. No frag grenades unless you hear me give the word. and although I know it's going to break a couple of hearts, no Marauders. We need to move fast, light and quiet and Marauders aren't any of those. We'll be leaving them behind this time."

Gossard looked like his dog had just died.

"Dry your eyes, Buttercup." Razak said to him. "It'll be waiting for you at the airport when we get back, safe and sound. "

Gossard muttered something that about, " . . . strange people touching it, doing who knows what with it."

Razak ignored him and went on. "When all the beacons are planted, we retreat, move over a couple of blocks and then head back to our rendevous point. Once we're clear, we call in Fleet and they paint the town red. Questions?"

"Where do we get these radio beacons?" asked Doc.

"A Fleet pilot is supposed to be handing them off to us when we touch down at the airport. They're the same kind of emergency beacons that downed pilots use, but Fleet says they can get their smart bombs to tune into the beacon's signal."

"How do we get to the bugs?" Rico asked. "Carmen taking us in?"

"Can't be done." said Razak. "Fleet is still calling dibs on her. Supposedly we'll have ground transport waiting for us at the airport. Anything else?"

No one seemed to have any more questions, so he said "Ok, then. Rico, Flores, get some bottled water and start chugging it. I want you to have drank at least three liters over the next forty minutes. While you're doing that, figure out which one of these stacks of supplies you guys stuck the Spook Suits in and dig out a couple. Have them on by the time we reach Buenos Aires."

Dizzy and Rico were wearing matching looks of despair.

* * *

Exactly what Spook Suits were or where they came from was classified. They had first been issued to squads shortly after the end of the Tesca Nemerosa campaign, and since then, they had been universally reviled by any trooper who'd had the misfortune to wear one.

One thing was clear. The suits were living things. This had never been confirmed officially, but once you had one on, and it started flexing and contracting against your skin, there could be no doubt.

At first glance, you might be mistake one for an oddly colored diver's wetsuit. It was designed to cover your entire body from head to toe, leaving only the area around the eyes and the nose and mouth uncovered. A closer inspection would reveal that the suit had no zipper, and nor any other apparent way of putting it on.

Spook suits were kept sealed in air-tight, light-proof cases full of vitamin rich nutrient gel until they were needed. Straight out of the case, they were a bright mustard color, but once exposed to air, they dulled slightly. The suit material felt like a liquid filled sponge on the outside and was about three-quarters of an inch thick. It didn't feel wet, though. If you squeezed it, no liquid came out; it simply moved around beneath the suit's surface. There was a slightly greasy feeling to the outside of the suit, like it was excreting natural oils of some kind. The inside of the suit was a pinkish color and felt slick like a dolphin or catfish's skin. It was covered in little nubs that were about an eighth of an inch long and spaced about half an inch apart. At the end of each of these nubs was a small orifice that could open and close and looked suspiciously like a mouth you might see on a snail. Unlike the outside of the suit, the inside did feel wet; it was coated in a viscous, mucous-like slime.

It was all one solid piece, and you pulled it on by shoving yourself through the suit's nose/mouth hole. If the suit had been kept properly hydrated in it's nutrient bath, it was very elastic and you could work your way into it without too much trouble. Once you had it on and everything in place, it would start contracting itself to the size and shape of your body.

One of the suit's quirks that really endeared it to the troops was that it only worked properly if you didn't wear anything beneath it. The slimy wet interior of the suit squeezed right up against your skin and it never stopped moving the entire time you had it on. The sensation was not unlike immersing yourself naked in a tub full of live eels.

Another draw back of the Spook Suits was how thirsty they were. From the moment you slipped one on, it's started absorbing the sweat off of your body. When that was gone, it started absorbing the moisture from inside your body. If you weren't constantly taking in liquids, it could dehydrate you within a matter of a few hours. Even if you were drinking lots of fluids, you couldn't keep up with the suit's voracious thirst; the amount of moisture the suit was taking out would eventually pass the amount you were taking in, no matter how much you drank. Fluid intake would only put off the inevitable for a little while. Leave the suit on for too long, and you would succumb to heat stroke.

Wearing a Spook Suit meant giving up most of the advantages of Powersuits. No Jump Jets. No strength enhancement. No armor. A hard thrust with a sharp knife could easily penetrate through the suit. A Warrior Bug's claw could tear through a Spook Suit like it was made of wet tissue paper.

All this only serves to raise the question: What would anyone wear the suits? The answer would be that they had incredible stealth capabilities. A trooper in a Spook Suit was the next best thing to an invisible man.

The suit gave off no odor of it's own and it masked all scent from the person that was wearing it. It worked the same way for body heat. As these were two of the main methods that Bug's used to track their prey, a trooper able to mask his scent and heat signature would already have a leg-up on any Bug he encountered. But the suit's advantages didn't stop there.

The suit also had chameleon-like abilities. Once it had been put on and sized itself to it's host, the suit's colors started shifting, changing to match it's surroundings. It could imitate textures, complex color patterns, and shades of light and shadow. A Spook Suit needed only a moment to assess it's surroundings and it could blend into just about any background. It's mimicry worked from all directions. View a person wearing it from any angle and other than a faint human shaped outline, you would be hard pressed to differentiate between the illusion the suit offered and the actual background.

The only times a Spook Suit couldn't imitate it's environment was while the person wearing it was moving and if it was in front of a moving background. It's abilities simply couldn't keep up with motion.

SICON command thought that the Spook Suit's advantages vastly outweighed it's drawbacks. To them, the ability to move through Bug territory undetected was worth a little discomfort for the person wearing the suit. But to date, there was no documented case of someone actually using the suits on a mission. The Roughnecks had certainly never used them in the field before. They had all tried them on when they were first issued to see how they worked and ever since, they had been finding ways to avoid using them. But now the dreaded day had arrived. They found themselves in a situation where they would have no choice but to don the suits.

* * *

Carmen's voice crackled from the Bettie's intercom, announcing that they were ten minutes out from Buenos Aires and to warn them that Fleet was saying that they could expect a rough approach. Other ships landing at the airport were reporting heavy plasma fire and at least one retrieval ship had been shot down.

The majority of Alpha Squad was ready for their mission. They had their helmets on, their pouches stocked with ammo, and their Moritas clipped to their backpacks. They stood in a loose group by the doors to the ship's toilets, waiting for Dizzy and Rico to come out.

Razak leaned in close to the doors and said, "Did you hear that, Apes? Ibanez says it's going to get squirrely pretty soon, so we should probably be strapping ourselves in. Better get a move on."

"Almost done." said Rico from the bathroom on the left.

Dizzy exited the bathroom on the right, looking a little queasy. She had suited up as she had been ordered, but still had the cowl pushed back behind her head. As soon as she stopped moving, the suit started mimicking the bathroom door behind her.

"You ok, Diz?" Higgins asked her. She did look a little green around the gills.

"Stupid suit's trying to crawl up into places that I'd rather it didn't." she growled through clenched teeth.

Doc couldn't think of any appropriate words of comfort, so he handed her a bottle of water, and said, "Better keep hydrating."

She took it from him and drank. Rico came out of the other bathroom, waddling slightly. Like Dizzy, his cowl was also pushed back. He and Dizzy gave each other half smiles of mutual sympathy.

"You got the rest of the gear?" he asked Gossard.

Goss held up a small case containing items that went with the Spook Suits. He raised the lid on it, revealing a pair of night vision goggles, a respirator, and a tiny communications ear-piece. The goggles had all the vision enhancing abilities of the Powersuit's visors. The respirator had a com-link in it that would work with the ear-piece to help them keep in contact with their teammates.

Rico took the ear piece from the case and inserted it into his ear. Then he reached back and pulled the cowl up over his head. Neither the goggles or the respirator had straps on them; they were shaped to fit in the suit's eye and mouth holes and were held into place by the suit's elasticity. He put the goggles into place and then pulled the cowl forward, stretching it down until the eye holes slipped over the goggle's protruding lenses. Then he put the respirator over his mouth and nose and stretched the suit material up over the edges of it, securing it in place.

Dizzy took one last, long pull from her water bottle, and then put on her ear-piece, goggles and respirator, too.

Rico looked around at his team mates and said, "If anyone ever questions whether I REALLY earned my citizenship, you're all my witnesses."

"If I had my way, you'd get two votes." said Razak. "We better strap ourselves in. We're getting close."

* * *

It was actually dusk when they reached Buenos Aires but because of the thick smoke, it looked like it was already dead of night. In the cockpit, Carmen was craning her neck for a view of the city, but was finding that it was just too murky out there. The glows of the larger fires could be seen through the dense haze but not much else. She didn't know if the power in the city was still on, but if it was, the smoke was too thick for her to be able to see any of the city's lights.

At least a dozen other ships were approaching the city with them, all of them closing in on the same coordinates. A few of them were retrieval ships like the Bettie, but most of them were the much smaller, far more maneuverable fighters and bombers. With all this traffic, Carmen was flying with one eye on the radar, trying to avoid any collisions as all these various ships converged on the airport.

They came under fire about four miles from land fall. From out of the smoke came the first of dozens of brilliant blue projectiles. These missiles were composed of intensely hot burning plasma that burned brighter than a welder's torch and was just as painful to look at. The plasma bursts came in a salvo, filling the sky with their blinding light. Long tails of plasma particles trailed out behind the missiles, making them appear like comets. Carmen avoided staring directly at them, knowing that they would burn their image into her retinas and leave a blind spot in her vision.

She took one hand off the yoke long enough to thumb down the intercom button and say, "Here it comes. Brace yourselves. It's gonna get hairy."

Several of the retrieval ship pilots lost their nerve and peeled off, not willing to run through that fiery hell. The rest accelerated, hoping to get through as fast as possible. As Carmen had predicted, it got hairy. The ships danced around each other, bobbing, weaving, zigging and zagging as the deadly plasma fire streaked through their midst. White-knuckled, she ran the gauntlet, grimacing at each near miss. At one point a corkscrewing atmospheric fighter slipped across her path so closely that she could read the pilot's name where it was stenciled beneath the cockpit. Carmen thought the she might have to hunt Clark "Disco Destroyer" Rawls down later and either kill him or buy him a drink. Then he was forgotten as she pulled back on the yoke, taking the ship nearly vertical in order to avoid another retrieval ship that had come barreling along a path perpendicular to her own. Gravity left them a few seconds later when she brought the nose back down hard, avoiding a plasma burst. She slid under it and gravity's pull came back with a vengeance, shoving her against her seat. The strain of these maneuvers sent vibrations through the ship's frame strong enough to make her teeth rattle. The ship groaned in protest, but stayed together.

The bombardment eased up all at once. The last of the plasma bursts came down in the river behind them, reacting violently with the cold water and sending up enormous explosions of steam. Carmen leaned forward and looked skyward, searching for the Bug's next fusillade. When several seconds had passed and none came, she figured that either they had passed out of the Plasma Bug's angle of fire, or the Bug's needed a little while to recharge after the last volley. Which ever it was, she was just glad it was over, even if it was for only a few minutes. With a sigh of relief, she felt herself relax just a little.

She considered herself lucky. Not every ship had made it through the rain of fire untouched. She had seen at least one retrieval ship take a hit, explode and go spinning towards the water in pieces. One of the bombers had been grazed and it's engine was trailing smoke.

The closer she got to the city, the deeper she penetrated into the smoke, and the worse the visibility got. The only thing she could see out of the windshield were large pieces of ash that were floating through the air. These ash flakes almost looked like snow, giving her the impression that she was flying through a blizzard. The poor visibility made her nervous. If any of the other ships tried to cross her path at this point, she probably wouldn't be able to see them in time to dodge them.

Hoping for less traffic and clearer view, Carmen dropped down to just above the water. The air was a little cleaner down here, so she skimmed the surface for the rest of the way into the waterfront. Out of the darkness ahead there appeared a faint glow and from it emerged the buildings and runway lights of the airport. She brought the Bettie's nose up slightly, enough to clear the trees growing on the banks of the river and then she was out over the airfield. She let off on the throttle and started circling, looking for a place to land. The fighters and bombers that had accompanied the transports across the estuary screamed on past, heading into the main part of the city.

Highways ran down the length of the airport on both sides and the inland side had a railroad running next to it. The airport's control tower and terminals were on the side closest to the waterfront and the lights were on in both. There was only a single runway but since all of the inbound craft were going to be of the vertical take off and landing variety, that wasn't going to be an issue. As long as the transports weren't sitting on the ground for that long, there was going to be plenty of room for everybody to land and offload troops.

The lights at the airport all seemed to be on, but that didn't necessarily mean the city's power was still on. The lights could have been powered by emergency back up generators. It may have just been the low visibility, but she still couldn't see any lights outside of the airport.

Carmen spotted several other Retrieval Ships sitting out on the tarmac on the southern end of the runway and she steered the Bettie over to the same area. As she drew closer, she could see forklifts removing supplies from the back of the ships. That came as a relief to her. It meant they would be able to offload quickly and hopefully, she could get out of there before the Plasma Bugs got going again. She found a piece of open ground a short distance from the other Retrieval Ships and set the Bettie down.

When she had the ship shut down, she unbuckled her safety harness and headed aft for the cargo bay. The rear loading ramp was down by the time she got there, and Razak was ordering everybody out.

"I hope nobody was hurt back here. Had to get a little wild on the stick to slip through."

"Nothing to worry about." Razak told her. "We all needed a good shaking to wake us up, anyway. Better than a strong cup of joe."

"I think I'd prefer the coffee." she said as she watched the squad disembark.

Rico and Dizzy's outfits made her do a double-take. As they walked by, the colors were shifting and it played tricks with her eyes, making her feel a little dizzy. Carmen had heard of Spook Suits before, but had never seen them in action. That must be what they were wearing, she decided. She tried to focus on them, but her eyes kept getting left behind, leaving her staring at what the suits had been mimicking a second before. The suits seemed to slide out from under her gaze.

Shaking her head in wonder, she followed the Roughnecks outside.

It was a flurry of activity out there. One of the nearby Retrieval Ships had been unloaded and was lifting off, it's engine's downdraft buffeting them and making their flip-down visors rattle. Ash blew up off of the ground as the ship rotated above their heads and then hovered off toward the water. Scores of forklifts were taking crates off of ships and were loading them on to the backs of flat-bed baggage trucks that had been commandeered from the airport. One of these forklifts set down it's load and then turned to come scooting in their direction. When it got close, they stepped out of the driver's way so he could get up the ramp.

The driver hadn't even known Rico and Dizzy were there and only spotted them when they moved. He stared at the spot where he had seen the movement as he drove up the ramp and was so distracted that he almost drove right off the side of it. He was barely able to shake off his trance and crank the wheel in time to avoid what would have been a nasty crash.

"I wish I always had that effect on men." said Dizzy.

Across the runways and landing pads, M.I. troops were exiting ships and spreading out, establishing a perimeter around the airport. Sand bag emplacements for heavy machine guns were being constructed at seventy-five foot intervals along the inland edge of the airport by shovel wielding troopers. Other troopers were placing anti-Tanker Bug obstacles and stringing out barbed wire between them.

Better fortifications, including walls and towers, would be built when the parts arrived. It was possible that these parts had been on the troop transports that had been turned away because of the plasma fire. If so, they wouldn't be arriving anytime soon. Not until the LZ had cooled down.

A temporary command post was being erected further up the airfield, just this side of the terminals. This was one of SICON's modular huts, an octagon shaped little building made out interchangeable sections that could be arranged and configured in many different ways. Huts of this same variety were spread out across the galaxy, serving as barracks, stockades, latrines, cafeterias, broadcast stations and many other things. They were strong, durable, and they didn't take long to put together. The squad constructing this one was moving quickly and was nearly finished snapping the last of it's armored pieces into place.

When Razak spotted this building, he turned to his squad and said, "I'm going to go find out who the C.O. around here is and report in. Gossard, I want you to talk to this forklift driver and find out where he's stashing our stuff. The rest of you, sit tight. I'll be back as soon as I've found our beacons and transportation."

The squad indicated they understood with a "Yessir." and Razak turned to walk over to the command post. Remembering something, he stopped about twenty feet away and turned back for a moment.

"Ibanez." he called out. "You take care of yourself."

Carmen smiled and nodded in reply and then gave him a little wave good-bye.

While the forklifts continued to unload the Bettie, the rest of the Roughnecks took a moment to echo Razak's sentiments, wishing her luck and telling her that they'd catch her on the bounce. She told them to be careful out there and to watch each other's backs.

As they said their goodbyes, she found herself kind of wishing that she could go with them. She had grown used to traveling with them over the last few weeks, and she thought it was going to be a little strange not to have them with her.

Within ten minutes the forklifts had finished unloading the supplies. Two troopers from Echo Squad came over to pilot the two Marauders off of the ship, apparently at the request of Lieutenant Razak. Gossard and Doc had followed them on board, dispensing all kinds of advice and warnings along the way, despite both men telling them repeatedly that they were quite familiar with these models of Marauders.

The remaining Roughnecks stood by and watched this with amusement.

Rico said, "You'd think those guys were taking Doc and Goss' daughters out on a date."

Once the Marauders were offloaded, Carmen told the squad that she had to get going. They said their final goodbyes and she went up the ramp, hitting the switch that closed it as she went past. She waved at them one last time through the narrowing gap and then headed up front. When she reached the cockpit, she started the engines, and waited with them idling until the next barrage of plasma fire had passed over head. Then she brought the Bettie up off the ground and headed north.

* * *

When Razak came to get the squad, he was driving a delivery truck that had been appropriated from one of the nearby dock yards. The truck was a white mid-sized short-cab with an enclosed cargo bay. According to the decals on the side of the cargo box, the truck had been used for delivering spools of wiring before SICON had laid their hands on it. The cargo box was twelve feet long, eight feet high, and eight feet wide, which meant there would be plenty of room for the entire squad.

The lieutenant pulled up to where the squad was waiting and hopped out, leaving the truck idling. As he walked over to join them, they could see that he was bringing a couple of items with him. One was a brown canvas bag, which he handed over to Rico.

"Those are the beacons." he told them. "Fleet has been running numbers and plotting trajectories and they figure that there are only four Plasma Bugs in the battery firing at the airport. There are only four beacons, so don't let anything happen to them."

The other object was a small GPS (Global Positioning System) unit, which he handed over to Gossard, the person most likely to know how to use it. Though Goss had been a little morose over the loss of his Marauder, his face lit up at the sight of this new toy and he immediately started pressing at the icons on the touch screen.

Razak leaned over Goss' shoulder, pointed at the screen of the GPS, and said, "Fleet's mathlete's have calculated where each burst has been coming from and marked them on the map. They're continuing to update it every time another salvo goes out, so we should be able to locate our Bugs pretty quick."

Goss turned slowly, keeping his eyes on the little screen. The map rotated as he turned, it's north always pointing true north. As he came to face south east, he stopped turning and pointed off in that direction, saying, "Looks like they're a couple of miles over that way."

Rico had pulled one of the beacons from the bag and was looking it over. It was a simple black rectangle, no lights, no buttons, no switches. Compared to Goss' toy, it was a thoroughly boring piece of equipment. Rico wasn't even sure of how it worked, and told Razak as much.

Razak took the device from him and turned it over, revealing a thick, foam pad that was covered with a thin piece of non stick plastic.

"It's already transmitting." he said. "Fleet turned them on before they handed them over. All you have to worry about is tagging the Bug. This padding on the back has an adhesive on it, and will stick to just about any solid surface. You just have to pull off this plastic covering and press it firmly against whatever part of the Bug is closest. Then walk away."

"Sounds simple enough." said Rico as he accepted the beacon back from Razak. He put it back in the bag and slung the bag's strap over his shoulder.

"Well, then. Let's go find some Bugs to decorate with them." said Razak. "Mount up."

He climbed back behind the wheel, and Gossard took the passenger seat so he could navigate. The rest of the Roughnecks went around behind the truck and pulled themselves up into the cargo box. They were still finding themselves comfortable spots on the floor where they could sit when Razak dropped the truck into drive and set off for the airport's entrance. Nearly everyone was thrown off of their feet and it was only T'Phai's quick grab that saved Higgins from tumbling out the back. Grumbling about Razak's driving, they settled in and braced their backs against the walls of the cargo box.

Dizzy and Rico found some spots near the front to sit, and scooted close so they could talk over the roar of the truck's engine. Rico leaned in close to her ear and said, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I'm trapped in a sauna." said Dizzy. "And queasy. Every time I take a step it feel like I'm walking barefoot on slugs."

He nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. "I think we just need to look on the bright side of things. Just think of the pounds you're sweating off."

She turned to look at him, her head tilted quizzically. "I wasn't aware that I needed to drop any pounds." she said flatly. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

He laughed when he realized that what he had said could be taken that way. "Um . . . no, that's not what I . . . " he said, trying to get the taste of foot out of his mouth. "Ok, forget that. Just think about this way. These suits are sucking all the oils and moisture off of our skin. Your pores are going to be flawless when we get done."

"So not only am I fat, I've got bad skin, too?" She looked away from him, shaking her head in wonder. "You sure know all the right things to say to a girl. Next you'll be telling me it will cure my horrendous B.O., my crossed eyes and buck teeth. Maybe you should quit while you're ahead."

"Yeah, you're probably right. But mark my words, Dizzy. A few years from now these suits are going to be declassified and then they'll be selling like hot cakes. They'll market them as some kind of spa in a bag. People are going to be laying down big bucks for the privilege to wear these things, and we're getting to do it for free."

"Rico, do you actually believe any of that malarkey?"

"Not really." he said with a sigh. "Just trying to make us feel better about the situation."

They sat in silence for a few moments and then Dizzy said, "I could sure go for a nice tall glass of iced lemonade."

Rico nodded and beneath his respirator, licked his parched lips.

They had left the truck's door up so they could see outside as they traveled. Their route took them across a railroad track and then a highway that had a steady flow of traffic that was headed northwest, out of the city. Razak got the truck to the other side of the road, crossed a grassy median and pulled up onto one of the city's streets.

From here, he headed southeast, and the squad saw fewer and fewer people as they moved further into the city. Either the residents of this area had fled, or they were hiding. With the smoke as thick as it was the air must have been unbreathable out there and who knew what kind of toxic gases might be floating around in it. It was no wonder the people were leaving the city in droves.

Visibility was getting steadily worse. The power was out, at least in this part of the city, and they could only see with the use of their helmet's night vision. Through their light amplifying visors, they could see ash piling up on cars, and it made the city look like a winter wonderland. This unearthly landscape and the deserted streets disturbed them, leaving them feeling very alone.

The going was slow. Abandoned cars lined the streets, and Razak had to negotiate around them. In a couple of spots, he was forced to shove a few of them out of the way using the grill and bumper of the truck. Even on clear stretches of road, he had to drive slow. The truck's headlights could only cut through about twenty feet of the ash and smoke, so going any faster would have been foolhardy. This proved to be a good strategy when their route brought them right to the edge of a fifteen foot deep bomb crater. At this point, Razak shut off the truck and ordered everybody out.

"We're on foot from here on in." he said.

Gossard was fiddling with the GPS and said, "The last plasma fire launched about six blocks from here, that way." He pointed east.

"Then that's where we're headed." said Razak. "Everyone remember where we are, this is the rendevous point if we get seperated. Looks like we're on . . ." He used his visor to scan the nearest street signs and said, "Viamonte, near the intersection with Sarandi."

The Bugs made it even easier for the Roughnecks to find them. As the squad started in the direction Goss had indicated, they fired off another round of Plasma, giving away their location. At the moment, they were a couple of blocks east and four blocks south of where they had fired from before. Alpha Squad circumvented the bomb crater and moved quickly but cautiously in the Bug's direction.

By the time the Roughnecks reached the nearest of the Plasma Bugs, they were on the move again, moving west. They caught only a glimpse of the ghostly blue glow of the plasma in a Bug's belly disappearing into the smoke further up the street. Though it had moved out of sight, the sound of the Bug's passage drifted back to them. City streets weren't really compatible with something the size of a Plasma Bug. They could hear street lights being knocked over, masonry crumbling, and cars being crushed.

Razak brought the squad to a halt and had them hunker down behind a dumpster while he laid out the plan. "Rico and Flores. Head due south one block over, then move west until you can get ahead of the last bug. The rest of us will move back north one block and then do the same thing. When we're in position, we'll starting popping off shots at the Bugs, keeping their attention on us. The two of you take turns tagging the Bugs, starting with the one in the rear and working your way to the front. Everyone else, be very careful what you shoot at and try to keep track of where our taggers are at all times. You got me people?"

"We get you, sir." they responded with a single voice.

"Alright then. Move out, Apes."

The squad split, moving in their designated directions. As Rico and Dizzy crossed the street, they found that the blacktop was cracked and cratered where the enormous Bugs had stepped. While most of the smaller holes could be easily jumped over, there were a few so large and deep that they had to skirt around them. The destruction left in the wake of the Bug's passage served to drive home just how much danger they were placing themselves in.

They moved down the next block and then turned west, moving parallel with the Bugs now. Rico took the bag of beacons off of his shoulder and pulled out one before handing the bag over to Dizzy.

"I'll take the first one." he said. "You know how I hate waiting."

Her stifled laugh came out as a snort. He hadn't said anything that funny, but her nervousness had her feeling a little giddy and laughing at anything. "No weapons, no armor. You know, this has got to be the craziest thing we've ever done."

"I know. I feel like I did on my first drop back in boot."

"I wonder if this is one of Razak's plans, and or if it was concocted by some Fleet doofus." said Dizzy.

"I couldn't tell you for sure." said Rico. "He didn't say anything to me." He knew what she meant, though. Razak's plans might sound crazy sometimes, but they usually worked. But if the plan came from someone else, it was probably just as crazy and dangerous as it sounded.

As Plasma Bugs were notoriously slow, it didn't take them long to get ahead of the rear bug in the column. They turned north on the next side street and snuck up to the corner where the Plasma Bug would be passing. As they got closer, they began to hear the din of the Plasma Bug's escort. It was the unmistakable screeches and hissing of Warrior Bugs. This wasn't exactly welcome news, but it had been expected.

There was no more unnecessary talk between them from this point on. Even the slightest sound might be heard by the Warrior Bugs and give them away. As they came up to the corner of the building, Johnny indicated with a hand signal for Dizzy to halt and drop stance. He crouched a few feet ahead of her and waited for the big Bug to pass.

The forward guard for the rear Plasma Bug passed in front of them, and it was comprised of four wary Warrior Bugs. These arachnids were swiveling their beaked heads to the left and the right, searching for any threats to their charge. Rico held his breath as he saw one of the Warriors turn it's gaze in his direction. As it scanned the side street, it's eyes paused on him for a second and every muscle in his body tensed. What had it seen? His goggles? His respirator? Had Dizzy moved? He remained absolutely still for several seconds while the Bug stared either at him, or at something near him. After what seemed like an eternity, it finally looked away and moved on up the street. Whatever had attracted it's attention, the creature must have decided it wasn't a threat. He quietly released a shuddering sigh. He'd had this nagging fear ever since he'd found out about the mission that the suits wouldn't work and he'd be left to face an angry swarm of Bugs with no defenses and no weapons. To find that his fear had been baseless came as a great relief.

The intersection began to light up with the glow of plasma. The sound of the juggernaut moving up the street got closer, and Johnny could feel the vibrations from it's steps in the sidewalk beneath his feet and in the wall that he was leaning against. A bus stop bench came skipping past him, falling to pieces as it tumbled over and over. A street light was knocked over and it fell out into the intersection, taking power lines and stop lights with it. The Bug was getting very close. Rico's mouth felt very dry but he couldn't be sure if it was from fear, or if it was just a symptom of the Spook Suit dehydrating him.

He turned over the beacon he held in his hand and removed the non-stick backing that covered the adhesive. When he looked back up, he could see the rest of his squad moving into the street directly across from him. He reached up with his free hand and pressed the talk button on his respirator.

"Lieutenant." he whispered. "This is Rico. We are directly across the street from you, next to the building on your left." He waved the beacon back and forth a couple of times so he could be spotted.

"We see you." came Razak's reply over the ear-piece. "Hold your position until we open fire."

"Roger that." 

As Alpha Squad took up their positions and prepared to open up on the Bugs, the Plasma Bug's head came into view. In Rico's experience, this one wasn't that large, at least by Plasma Bug standards. Some Plasma Bugs could grow to have heads the size of a compact cars; this one was about the size of a household washing machine. The Bug's must have picked the smaller ones so that they would be better able to negotiate the city's streets. This Bug was still plenty big, though, and Johnny sure wasn't complaining.

More Warrior Bugs appeared, three on each side of the Plasma Bug. Those on the far side shrieked in surprise when they noticed the Roughnecks. The Warriors on Rico's side reacted by turning in that direction and crouching low, trying to look under the Plasma Bug and see what had spooked their comrades.

Rico heard Razak's voice bellow out over his helmet's loud speaker from across the street, "Open fire! Be sure of what you're shooting at, Apes!"

Gunshots rang out from across the street, and the Warrior's attentions were now completely focused in that direction. Gnashing their mandibles, they rushed around the Plasma Bug and towards the attacking troopers. More Warriors from the front and rear guards joined the charge, leaving the Plasma Bug's left side completely exposed. The Plasma Bug didn't seem to notice any off this; it just kept lumbering forward at the same slow, deliberate pace.

Now that the Warriors were distracted, Rico stood up and walked straight out into the street. He stepped carefully over the wreckage of the street lights and stopped about three feet from the Plasma Bug's side. Johnny felt very, very small. Heart thundering in his chest, he stood absolutely still and waited for the back end of the Bug to pass. As the Bug's rear leg went swinging past him, he stepped around it and moved up under the immense, glowing belly.

As he moved beneath the Bug, he had the unsettling mental picture of it tripping on a fallen streetlight and falling on top of him. That would be all she wrote, he thought. His squad would have to peel his remains up off of the ground with a spatula. Knowing he needed to stay focused, he pushed those thoughts aside, and brought his mind back to the task at hand.

Plasma Bugs were lowest to the ground at the front end and went progressively higher the further back on the Bug you went. At the point between the two back legs, it was about twelve feet to the underside of the belly. This was well out of jumping range for Rico, so he had to move farther forward before he could find a spot that he could reach. Closer to the thorax of the Bug it was a much more reasonable seven feet. Keeping pace with the Bug, he raised the beacon up and shoved it's adhesive padding hard against the hard shell of the belly. When he took his hand away, the beacon remained in place.

Oblivious, the Bug continued on it's way while Rico stopped and waited for it to move on past him. Once he was clear of it, he ran back across the street and joined up with Dizzy. The rush of adrenaline was making him feel a little faint, so he stopped for a few seconds to lean against the wall of the building and let his pulse return to normal. Dizzy reached over and gave him a congratulatory slap on the shoulder.

When his heart had slowed a little, he turned on his com-link and said, "One down."

"Copy that." Razak replied. "We're moving up to the next Bug."

Rico and Dizzy looked across the intersection and saw the rest of their squad withdraw, retreating up the street away from them. The Warrior Bugs who had survived the encounter watched them go and then turned back to surround their Plasma Bug once again.

Dizzy took out a beacon and handed the bag to Rico. She took the lead as they moved south one block and then west again, running to catch up with the second Bug in the convoy. As he followed in her tracks, Rico found it hard to discern just how far ahead of him Dizzy was. Her Spook Suit was playing tricks on his depth perception, and he kept almost running over her when she slowed down. She kept turning around to look at him every time he did it, and he could well imagine the dirty looks she was firing away beneath that mask.

They had to run west for four blocks to get ahead of the next Bug. The Bugs were spacing themselves out pretty well, most likely to make themselves harder targets for the Fleet bombers. On the one hand, this meant that they would only have to deal with the escort for one Plasma Bug at a time. But on the other hand, it meant a lot of running, which meant a lot of sweating. Sweating that was draining them of body fluids they couldn't afford to lose. Johnny didn't think it was a good sign that despite the fact that he had managed to drink four liters of water before putting on the suit, nature wasn't calling.

Dizzy was able to plant her beacon on the next Bug without any problems, and there was only a slight hiccup when it was Rico's turn again. The thick, squishy material of the Spook Suits made gripping things in his hands a little tricky, and when he went to stick the beacon on the Bug, he fumbled it. It had just popped right out of his hand, and went spinning off through the air. By reacting quickly, Johnny was able to get his hand under it as it fell and caught it before it hit the ground. Unfortunately, it fell into his palm adhesive side down. He stared at the beacon that was now glued to his palm, and visions of fleet bombers zeroing in on it flashed through his head. For a second there, hysterical panic seemed like a perfectly natural response. But then he stopped himself, took a deep breath and tried to peel the beacon back off of his hand. Much to his relief, it turns out that adhesives didn't stick to Spook Suits all that well. It must have been the suit's thin glaze of natural oils that did it, but the beacon came off of his hand easily. Once he had it free, he attached it to the Bug and made his getaway.

When he reached where Dizzy was waiting for him, she asked what the hold up had been.

"The beacon slipped out of my hand." he told her. "I almost dropped it. Feel free to start with the ridicule any time."

Happy to oblige, she replied, "Nice one, Fumblina."

Rico hit his talk button and said, "Bug number 3 is on the air."

* * *

In a narrow alleyway across the street, Razak lowered his smoking Morita and confirmed to Rico that he had received the transmission. Then he turned to his team and said, "All right, we're pulling back and moving on to the next Bug. Gossard, T'Phai, Higgins, you're taking point. Doc and I will bring up the rear." 

Razak and Doc held their positions, holding back the Bugs with intermittent fire while the rest of the team fell into place. Even though the number of shooters had dropped by three-fifths, the Bug's luck didn't improve. The alley was only about eight feet wide and this was preventing the Bugs from rushing in more than one at a time. All the same, they were still trying. Every few seconds one of them would make an attempt to get at the troopers. The Warrior would make a mad dash around the corner, frantically trying to close the distance before one of the troopers got a lucky kill-shot or the agony of the concentrated fire forced the Bug to retreat back to the street.. There were two dead Bugs lying in a tangled heap about twelve feet into the alley, and these were helping to hamper the attacks of their comrades. All those sprawled limbs were difficult to climb over when you were in a hurry.

"In place and moving." Gossard called back to them.

Razak turned to Doc and said, "Go."

Doc turned and ran twenty feet up the alley before stopping, making an about face, and resuming his fire on the Bugs. Now that Razak could lower his gun for a few seconds without worrying about one of the Bugs skewering him, he moved up the alley himself, taking the opportunity to change out the clip on his rifle as he ran. Shrieks of frustration and pain trailed him as one of the Bugs mistook Razak's falling back as an opportunity to attack. Even over the roar of the gunfire, the impacts of Doc's bullets tearing into the Bug's exoskeleton could be clearly heard. He moved another twenty feet past Doc and then took his turn providing cover fire.

Despite Doc's blistering assault, the Bug was still coming. It was holding it's head low and it's tail high, only exposing the much thicker armor plate of it's back and upper beak. It was hurting, but it was pushing through the pain, intent on getting at the troopers. It tripped and fell it's way over the dead Bugs and then was up and running towards them. At the mouth of the alley, others Bugs were seeing this and were becoming emboldened by it. They pushed into the alley, so eager to join the fray that they were tripping over each other.

Doc and Razak backed away from the charging Warrior, both of them squeezing off burst after burst. The Bug was taking dozens of hits, but the vast majority of them weren't striking anything vulnerable. By pure happenstance, one stray round shattered one of it's leg joints and it's relentless charge was finally checked. The arachnid faltered, the wounded leg collapsing out from under it. It's momentum continued to carry it forward, and it twisted, trying to find it's balance. It's more thinly armored underside was exposed as it careened towards them, and both men focused their fire on it. The Bug was dropping stone dead only a few seconds later.

One of the Bugs discovered that the narrowness of the alley actually provided it with a chance to move vertically. By spreading it's legs wide, bracing the tips of it's claws against the walls of the opposing buildings, it could climb up between them. By keeping at least two legs braced at any given time, it could move up the alley with surprising speed and nimbleness. Other Bugs saw this, realized that they could move faster and in greater numbers than on the ground and they followed suit. Within seconds, half a dozen Warriors were straddling the space between the buildings and advancing on the troopers.

Razak felt like swearing. The Warrior escorts with the two previous Plasma Bugs had turned back when his squad had retreated. Once the immediate threat to their charge had disappeared, they had called off their attack. These Warriors, on the other hand, seemed to be much more persistent, much more intent on getting at the troopers and killing them. They didn't seem to be worried at all about the fact that they were leaving the Plasma Bug exposed and unprotected.

"Stubborn buggers, aren't they?" Razak shouted between bursts from his rifle. He peppered the wall around the feet of a Bug that was almost directly over head. It's reflex action was to yank it's foot away, and it lost it's footing. Razak quickly backed out of the way as the Bug came tumbling down, pulling down one of it's companions with it. They hit the ground in a tangled, thrashing mess, an obstacle to the Bugs advancing up the alley on the ground.

"I think they're starting to get suspicious of our little hit and runs." said Doc.

Gossard spoke up over com-link. "Looks like you've got some trouble, sir. Should we come back?"

Razak could hear the worry in his voice. "Negative." he said. "We need to keep moving. Can't let them get us bogged down."

"Copy that." said Goss, although he didn't sound entirely convinced. "We're nearly to the street. We'll wait for you there."

A few moments later, Razak jerked in surprise at the sound of gun fire erupting from that end of the alley. He flipped down his visor as he turned in it's direction. His thermal vision showed T'Phai, Gossard and Higgins firing their Moritas at something out in the street, but because of the angle, he couldn't see what they were shooting at.

"Gossard! Report!"

"Bugs, sir. And lots of them. They're trying to cut us off and keep us from getting to the street!"

Where had these Warriors come from? Could they be from the escorts of the Bugs they had already tagged? He didn't have time to ponder this. Any second now, and the Warriors would have cut off their escape. Razak quickly evaluated his options and then wasted no time deciding on his course of action.

"Get clear." he ordered as he flipped his visor back up. "Don't wait for us."

Doc's eyes had left the Bugs he was shooting at and were on his lieutenant now. There was barely contained panic in them.

"I repeat. Do not wait for us. Doc and I will go out a different way." As he said this he used his index finger to direct Doc's attention upward. Doc looked up, saw the fire escape, and exhaled with relief.

"We'll use our jump jets to get to higher ground." Razak told him. "You first."

"Higher ground sounds nice right about now." said Doc as he looked with growing concern at the Arachnids that were now coming at them from both ends of the alley. He hung up his gun, then reached back and pulled out the controls for his jump jets. With a press of the button he was launched two stories skyward, his arms flailing wildly before grabbing onto the metal railing of the fire escape. Razak was right behind him, coming up the opposite side of the staircase.

"Go, Doc! Go!" Razak was shouting. "You've got a bug coming up right behind you!"

Doc didn't waste any time looking. He pulled his torso up onto the railing, got his feet planted firmly on the fire escape landing and then launched upward again. One of the wall climbing Arachnids leapt at the spot he had been only an instant before, it's mandibles tearing into the thin metal frame of the stairs. Some of the bolts that secured the stairs to the wall of the building tore out and the whole structure twisted, threatening to fall. The body of the Warrior Bug dropped, it's legs scrambling for purchase. It managed to hang on with it's beak and the staircase groaned under the strain of it's considerable weight.

Razak launched again. The wall of the building went past in a blur and then he was up two more flights of the stairs. The shoulder armor of his power suit impacted hard on the railing, almost bouncing him back out into open space, but he was able to hook one arm over it before he fell. As he pulled himself to his feet, a safety bolt popped out of the wall and went spinning past his head. His eyes followed it as it fell towards the ground and it disappeared into the mass of Warrior Bugs that now clogged the alley. They were crawling on top of each other, trying to get onto the fire escape. Razak looked back up, gauging how far he had to go. Only two more stories. One more jump and he'd be on the roof.

Doc's jump jets flared and he disappeared up and over the edge of the top of the building. As he braced to follow, Razak felt the fire escape start to go. It swayed, tilting back and forth like a drunk who'd had one too many. He figured being anywhere near it was a bad idea, so he jumped out into open space, and tried not to look down at all those snapping beaks below him. Once clear of the falling metal structure, he hit the launch button and shot upward. As soon as he cleared the roof he was clutching at the packs on his belt and he had a grenade in each hand before he touched down on it's tar covered surface. With a press of his thumbs, both grenades were armed and he tossed them over into the alley below. As he reached for more, he told Doc to do the same.

"We've got to take out as many as we can while they're bottlenecked in that alley."

He only had two more frag grenades, and Doc only had four on him. After those had gone off, they stepped to the edge of the roof and took turns firing their Morita's RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenades) down into the churning mass of Bugs. By the time they were finished, Razak was satisfied that between the eight frag grenades and the four RPGs, anything alive down there wasn't going to be in any condition to come chasing after them.

With that threat eliminated, they turned their attention to reuniting with the rest of their squad and finishing the mission. Razak took a moment to get his bearings and recognized the sounds of sporadic gunfire coming from a couple of blocks away. From the sound of things, it would seem that not all the Bugs had gone into the alley. They got a fix on where the sounds of combat were coming from and took off across the rooftop in that direction at a fast lope. As they ran, Razak called out to Gossard on his com-link.

"Goss, what's your status?"

"Getting better by the second." came the reply a few seconds later. "We moved west two blocks, but some of the Bugs were still trailing us. We stopped to deal with them. It looks like we've got them on their last legs."

Razak knew there was a good chance that Gossard had meant that last part literally. He and Doc approached the edge of the roof and despite the haze, had a pretty good view of the street below. Gossard, T'Phai, and Higgins had done him proud. The street was littered with dead and dying Bugs.

"Nicely done, Apes. Hold your position. We're coming to you."

* * *

"They're sure taking their own sweet time getting here, aren't they?" Dizzy whispered over her shoulder.

"The El-Tee know the stakes." replied Rico. "He'll get here when he can." They had heard the com-link chatter, and knew the squad had run into some kind of trouble.

They were crouched down behind an abandoned car eight blocks west of where they had tagged their last Bug. It was with mounting anxiety that they waited for the rest of their team to catch up. They had already waited at another intersection four blocks back, but delays for their squad mates had allowed the Plasma Bug to pass them by, untagged. They'd had to run again to get back ahead of it, feeling exhaustion creeping in with every step. By the time they reached this intersection, both of them were wheezing and complaining of cramps. They hunkered down, trying to catch their breath, and watching as the Plasma Bug steadily approached. Now it was entering their intersection and Razak's squad had, once again, failed to appear.

Dizzy was really feeling the strain. She had psyched herself up twice now and this kind of sustained state of readiness was leaving her shaky, jittery. "We should just walk out there and tag it." she said. "I can't take all this waiting around." That was her in a nutshell. She'd rather just race right into grave danger than have to sit around and wait for something.

It wasn't the waiting that was bothering Rico. What worried him was how full and bloated the Bug's Plasma sack had become. It had been over twenty minutes since the last Plasma barrage and this Bug looked like it was primed to fire off another.

He reached up to his mouthpiece and pressed the talk button. "Lieutenant, this is Rico. Do you copy?"

"Loud and clear, Sergeant. What's your situation?"

Rico noticed that Razak was giving no indication that he was even slightly out of breath, even though he was probably running in their direction at a full clip. They could thank the wonders of Power Suits for that, and as wore out and tired as Rico felt, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of envy. Ah, Power Suits! Now there was a worthwhile piece of military technology! It made a trooper better, stronger, faster, made him more aware of his surroundings and protected him from harm. Not like the stupid Spook Suit that was slowly sucking the life out of him. Johnny missed his Power Suit and regretted every insulting thing he'd ever said about it.

"Sergeant?" Razak's voice cut into his train of thought and quickly derailed it. "I repeat, what's your situation?"

"Sorry, sir. My mind's drifting a little. The situation is that the Bug is starting to move through our intersection. We'd like to request permission to try to tag it alone."

"Permission denied. It's much too dangerous. We're headed your way as fast as we can. If we miss it this time, we'll catch it again further up the street."

"Sir, I don't mean to question orders, but I think that you should know that this thing looks like my Aunt Juanita on her due date. It's ready to pop at any moment. I'm afraid if we wait too much longer, the Bugs are going to launch another salvo. And to be honest, sir, Diz and I don't have too much more running left in us. These suits are doing a number on us."

The com-link was silent for a few moments, and then Razak said, "I hear what you're saying, Rico. I'm counting on you guys to hold it together for just a little longer. We're going to mix up the plan a little. Here's the way it's going to go down. You and Flores are going to hit the dirt and hug the ground until I give you the word. In about thirty seconds we're going to be coming up on your cross street. This time we're not going to wait until we get to your intersection before we open fire. As soon as we round the corner, we're going to have our guns blazing. We'll keep our fire high and try not to let any of it go stray, but at that range I can't promise any kind of accuracy. That means that it's imperative that you keep your heads down. I don't want either of you getting hit. With any luck, the Bug escort will come running to us and when we are closing in on them, I'll signal you and you can tag the Plasma Bug. Any questions?"

Dizzy and Rico were already lowering themselves onto the ground. "No, sir." Rico answered him. "We'll be laying low and thinking flat thoughts."

They were only on the ground, prone, for a few seconds before Rico felt his exhaustion wash over him. The small amount of sleep he'd gotten back in Oregon seemed like it must have been a million years ago. We have a little time, he thought. Might as well relax. Conserve their energy. It's not like they had anything else to do.

Rico became aware that he was counting something and for a few seconds, he was at a loss as to what it was. He thought at first he might have been counting down the seconds until Razak and his team showed up, but that wasn't it. Apparently, his wandering mind was counting off the vibrations he could feel coming through the ground at regular intervals. It was the Plasma Bug's footsteps, he realized. That irritated him. What a fine sergeant he made! He needed to be ready to go when Razak gave the word and here he was, letting his attention go on nature walks. Still, he had to admit, there was something very hypnotic, even tranquilizing about the vibrations. Then he realized that he was counting them again and with a grunt of frustration, told himself very firmly to stop. But as soon as he began thinking about something else, somewhere in the back of his mind he started keeping track of them once more.

He wouldn't have thought it possible, but face down on the cool asphalt may have been the most comfortable place he had ever found himself. The ground didn't even feel that hard. The thick flesh of the Spook Suit was almost like a mattress beneath him. The coolness of the asphalt seeped up through the suit, and it felt really good. It sparked childhood memories of laying on cool grass on a hot summer day. Back then if he had nodded off his biggest worry would have been a sunburn.

"I swear, if we're here much longer, I'm going to fall asleep." he said to Dizzy, but after he said it, he thought about it, and he didn't think he'd actually said the words out loud. Wasn't that strange?

Distant gunfire. That's important, he thought. Had to stay awake. Stay awake.

"Rico?" said Dizzy.

"Hmmm?"

"The El-Tee said go."

"But it's almost my turn on the tire swing."

"Rico!" Dizzy hissed at him."Do not tell me you fell asleep!" She shook him, violently. "Wake up, you idiot! The El-Tee said go!"

He forced his eyes open wide, and at the same time, pushed himself up off of the ground, to his feet. He felt lethargic and his head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. "Whoozi- what's it- when?" he blurted, his tongue feeling large and unwieldy in his mouth. "He said now?" He swayed unsteadily, trying to find his balance.

"C'mon!" she growled in disgust before grabbing his arm and setting him in motion. He stumbled along behind her as she dragged him in the direction of the Plasma Bug that was now crossing the street in front of them. "You've gotta snap out of it, Rico!"

The sight of that colossal Bug and it's distended belly full of Plasma snapped his mind back into focus. The gears slipped back into place and started to turn. "Ok." he said. "I'm back."

"You are never going to live this down." Dizzy told him. "This is the kind of thing that gets a guy a nickname that he just can't get rid of. How does Rip Van Rico grab ya?"

"I couldn't have been out for more than a couple of seconds." said Rico.

"We're gonna change your call sign to 'Snooze Button'"

They ran out into the intersection, hurdling over downed light poles and skipping over the Bug's craterous footprints. Sometime between when Johnny had laid down on the ground and now, the Plasma Bug had kicked a fire hydrant off of it's mountings and he had been completely oblivious when it happened. Water was spraying from the broken hydrant like a fountain twenty feet up into the air and was soaking everything in a half block radius. As the ran into the reach of this fountain, the water quickly soaked into their suits, and was shockingly cold. Any cobwebs clinging to Johnny's brain were gone now.

The ground beneath their feet was being turned to an ashy mud and it was splattering up their legs. For a brief moment, Rico wondered if this was going to ruin the Spook Suit's illusion of invisibility, but he quickly decided that they were just going to have to take the risk. Time was running out.

They were thrilled to see that the nearest Warrior Bug was more than sixty feet away, it's attention fixed on Razak and the rest of the Roughnecks. This meant the Plasma Bug was left utterly unattended. They were free to move around it at their leisure, as long as they were quiet about it.

As they drew closer to the Bug, Rico pulled the last beacon from the tote bag and handed it to Dizzy. He watched her approach the Bug from the rear, and dropped back, feeling no strong urge to be beneath that monster if he didn't have to. By watching the Spook Suit's telltale distortion of the background, he kept track of her movements and as he watched her, he found he had been right, the mud had ruined the invisibility a little. He could see a greyish smudge moving where Dizzy's lower legs would have been. You would have to know what you were looking for to spot it, though. When she stopped moving it probably wouldn't have been very noticeable at all.

Dizzy was still catching up with the Bug when it's left back leg came down onto a man-hole cover. As the weight of it's monstrous bulk settled onto that leg, the asphalt around the metal disk sprouted some very ominous looking cracks. There must have been a weak spot in the street under that sewer opening and all that weight focused directly over it was more than it could bear. When the Bug raised it's other hind leg to step forward, the man-hole tore free from the concrete and gave way. The foot that had been pressing on the man-hole cover dropped straight down about eight feet with a deafening clang. The Bug was thrown off balance, the weight of it's Plasma sack threatening to drag it over onto it's side. It was trying desperately to hold itself upright with it's two front legs while it's right rear leg swung wildly around in the air.

As this was happening, Dizzy had frozen herself in place. From where he stood, Rico could see that the ground all around her was dividing itself up into large, uneven sections. The damaged portion of the street was about eight feet wide and extended fifteen feet in front of and behind where the Bug's foot had punched through. Most likely, there was a sewer tunnel or water channel running beneath their feet, parallel to the street. To Rico's horror, the sections began to buckle, preparing for an inevitable collapse. An edge tilted up here while another tilted down there. The sound of heavy rocks grinding against each other filled the air.

The Bug had managed to find it's balance, and had brought it's right rear leg back down until it's foot was flat on the ground. Intent on freeing itself, it bent it's right front leg, tilting it's weight in that direction. At the same time, it started to lift the left rear leg out of the hole.

Rico could see where this was going. "Dizzy!" he whispered frantically. "Come back towards me!" He took two quick strides to the edge of the disintegrating pavement and threw out his hand for her to grab.

It was too late. As the Bug's foot came up out of the hole, it's wide, splayed toes caught on the fractured edges and dragged them upward. The Bug's foot came free, and the chunks of concrete fell back into the hole, taking the surrounding pieces with them. This was all it took to set off the chain reaction. Starting from the center hole and quickly spreading outward, the large slabs of concrete began to fall. In a heartbeat, the cave-in had spread to the ground beneath Dizzy, and she was plunging into the cavity.

"Dizzy!" Rico shouted, terror making his voice shriller than usual. There was no reply from below.

Trying to catch some glimpse of her, he leaned far out over the edge. The tunnel was apparently a conduit for a subterranean river. Fast moving water three to four feet deep was flowing over the debris from the collapse and turning it into white water rapids. He carefully scanned the wreckage below, but couldn't see her anywhere. His mind raced with all the horrific possibilities. She could be buried under the rubble or might even have been swept downstream. Johnny yelled her name again, not caring if any of the Warrior Bugs heard him and came running.

"I'm here." he heard her say.

His eyes followed the sound of her voice and he spotted what he believed was her clinging to one of the concrete slabs. An exhilarating sense of relief made him want to burst out in laughter and celebration, but he was able to check himself.

"Are you all in one piece?" he asked excitedly as he moved around the edge of the pit to get closer to her.

"Yeah. There may be some bruises but nothing feels broken."

Reaching the spot closest to her, he dropped down onto his belly and extended his arm down into the hole.

"Can you reach me?" he asked.

She reached out with one hand, straining to grab onto his, but it was just too far. Johnny tried to think of what could be nearby that would be long enough for him to hold out for her to grab onto. He was considering going and getting one of the broken street signs he had seen earlier and then he remembered the bag that had held the beacons. He rolled, pulling the strap from over his head and shoulder. Once it was freed, he swung it out over to Dizzy until she was able to snag the swinging bag out of the air and procure a solid grip on it. Rico got up onto his feet, and then started to pull the strap up out of the hole, hand over hand. She scrambled with her feet as he pulled her up, struggling to get purchase on the wall of the cavity and help him lift her weight. With both of them working at it, in no time at all Dizzy was clearing the edge of the hole. She tried to get her feet on the ground, but instead just ended up getting them tangled and piling into Rico, knocking them both to the ground. They lay there for a moment, him flat on his back, her on top of him, both of them trying to catch their breath.

When he started breathing a little slower, Rico asked, "Are you sure you're OK?"

"Nothing wrong with me a week of sleep wouldn't fix." she told him.

He nodded in agreement, knowing exactly what she meant. "I don't suppose you were able to hold onto the beacon through out that whole ordeal."

"Nope." Dizzy replied. "It's somewhere down in that mess."

He turned his head, looked at the Plasma Bug that was retreating up the street from them and then with an exhausted sigh said, "This day just keeps getting better."

He lay there for a few seconds more, convincing himself that he really did need to get up. Then he thought of the other Plasma Bugs and their escorts that were headed their way even as they were laying there, and that was all it took.

"You got to get off me." he told her. "We need to get moving."

She rolled off of him and Rico got to his feet. Then he offered Dizzy his hand and helped her up. Neither of them felt too steady, so they leaned against each other while he contacted Lieutenant Razak. It was at times like this that he really didn't like being the squad's top kick. He hated having to be the one to tell the lieutenant the bad news.

"Lieutenant, this is Rico. Do you copy?"

"I hear you, Rico. Is that Bug tagged?"

"Negative, sir. We ran into a spot of trouble. We've lost the beacon."

He waited patiently while the lieutenant let that sink in and then Razak said, "What kind of trouble, Sergeant?"

"The Plasma Bug caused a cave-in and Dizzy was standing right on top of it when it went. She's out of the hole, and she's ok, but she couldn't hold onto the beacon. It's either buried under a couple of tons of broken concrete, or it got swept away in an underground river." He paused for a second, trying to find the right words to say, and finding none, settled on, "We're sorry, sir."

"No need to be sorry." said Razak. He didn't sound happy, but he didn't sound like he was angry with them, either. "It couldn't be helped. I'm sure you did your best. We're going to pull back, and move two blocks north. Meet us there."

"Yessir." Rico replied. Razak's reassurances hadn't made him feel any better.

They circled around the hole in the street and moved west, passing the Plasma Bug along the way. After they had covered about half a block, they heard the screeches and squawks of the Warriors coming up the street behind them, and this encouraged them to switch from a fast walk to a run. When they reached the next intersection, they turned right and headed north, on their way to rendevous with their squad.

* * *

"I think I see our ghost troopers coming up the road." said Gossard. "I keep seeing some kind of smudgy distortion in the air about a block that way." He pointed up the street that approached from the west.

Razak walked up behind Gossard, looking in the direction he was pointing with his eyes narrowed to squints. "I believe you're right." he said.

When they arrived shortly afterward, Razak told them, "Sit down. Take a load off. Get some rest while I get Command on the horn."

Rico and Dizzy were in no condition to argue, so they leaned against the wall of a building and then slid down to sit on their butts. Meanwhile, T'phai, Doc, Gossard and Higgins set up a loose perimeter, each of them taking a knee and keeping an eye out for any Bugs that might try to sneak up on their position.

Razak switched his com-link to a secure channel and said, "Alpha One to Blue Leader. Come in, Blue Leader"

"Alpha One, this is Blue Leader. Go ahead."

"We've tagged three of the four Plasma Bugs and they are ready for air strikes. We've lost the fourth beacon so do not wait for us to tag the fourth Bug. We will find a way to take out the fourth Bug after you have destroyed the ones we tagged. Over."

Blue Leader took a couple of seconds to process this and then said, "Alpha One, are you sure you can eliminate the fourth Bug? Or do we need to develop an alternate plan? Over."

"You know us, Blue Leader. We'll find a way. Over"

"If you say you can finish the job, I'll be more than happy to let you. But remember, you need to be quick about it. We've got transport pilots calling us every thirty seconds asking what the hold up is. Over"

"Roger that, Blue Leader. We won't let you down. Alpha One out."

Higgins stood up and came over to Razak. "I'm just wondering, sir. Do you have a plan to take out that Bug?"

"Not yet." Razak told him. "But we will. First, we need to get Flores and Rico hydrated and halfway functional again. Then you're all going to help me figure out a way to kill that overgrown roach."

Doc spoke up, saying, "I think I can help with the first problem. I saw a little corner market when we were headed this way. They probably have bottled water in there. It also wouldn't hurt to get some food into those two."

"That sounds like where we want to be." said Razak. "Doc, lead the way. The rest of us will help Rico and Flores to get where we're going."

The Roughnecks made their way back to where Doc remembered seeing the store. Along the way, Higgins and T'Phai walked with Dizzy while Goss and Razak accompanied Rico. While they didn't have to carry the two exhausted troopers, they did kind of keep them moving, steadied them if they started to tip over and helped them stand back up if their knees started to buckle.

When they were nearly to the market, Fleet bombing of the Bugs got under way and the squad stopped to watch. It was only four or five blocks over to where the precision guided bombs were striking the closest bugs, so the Roughnecks were treated to quite a show. The explosions where huge, almost deafening. The earth beneath their feet shook from the impacts. When any of the bombs touched down, the sky would turn white for an instant and then a blinding blue as the Bugs's Plasma detonated. Flares of burning Plasma were thrown hundreds of feet into the air like fireworks before they came drifting down, lazily, into the surrounding neighborhood. They heard the rumble of buildings collapsing, buckling under the damage caused by the exploding Bugs. The windows in the surrounding buildings rattled in their frames in response to the changes in air pressure caused by the bombs and some of them even shattered, littering the sidewalks with broken glass.

As they watched, the Roughnecks felt a certain satisfaction that it was their hard work that had made this spectacle possible. Even Dizzy and Rico felt a little perked up by the sight of it. But mixed with the feeling of satisfaction, there was also a sense of guilt that they had not yet completed their mission.

Shortly after it began, the bombing was over and quiet returned to this part of the city. The Roughnecks continued on their way and a little later, arrived at their destination.

The little market was locked up tight, with a solid security gate blocking the front door. Luckily, Gossard had a forced entry kit on him and a couple of it's small shape charges made short work of the locks. When the doors were open, Doc and T'phai went in first, clearing the building and making sure the store owner wasn't waiting in there with a shotgun. It wouldn't have been good to be mistaken for common looters and get their heads blown off. It turned out that there was nothing to worry about as the store's owners had apparently abandoned it.

Inside the store, Johnny and Dizzy sat down on the floor and waited while Doc went in search of bottled water for them to drink. In the meantime, they removed their goggles and then pulled back the masks of their Spook Suits, taking care to keep their respirator in place with one hand. The Spook Suit slime had dried and it coated their hair and skin in a thin crust that flaked off when they ran their hands over it.

Doc returned with the water, and had some saltine crackers for them to eat, too. He squatted down by them and took the lids off of the two gallon jugs of water. Reaching back, he pulled out his med kit and removed from it two little plastic packets. He tore the top off of one of these and poured powder from the packet into one of the jugs of water. Then he repeated this process with the other jug. After putting the lids back on and giving each container a good shake, he handed them over to the Rico and Flores.

They eyed the jugs suspiciously. The powder had turned the water a strange, dark green color, almost the color of canned spinach. It didn't look very appetizing. Seeing the looks on their faces, Doc said, "Don't worry. It tastes like a fruit drink. It will help replenish the salts and sugars that you've been losing over the last few hours."

"If you say so." said Rico. He lowered his respirator and took an experimental drink. He found he liked the taste and began to gulp from the jug.

"Slow down." Doc told him. "You'll make yourself sick. Drink a little at a time. And eat some of those crackers. They will help you keep from getting nauseous."

Dizzy took a drink from hers and then shuddered at the taste. "Tastes like green Jell-O." she said. "I hate green Jell-O."

"No arguments." Doc told her. "Down the hatch."

She drank some more, but not without making some very unpleasant faces.

Seeing that Rico and Dizzy were being properly cared for, Razak called everyone's attention back to the mission that they still had to finish. "Let's pool our resources, people." he told them. "See if we got anything on us that will stop a Plasma Bug."

The Roughnecks pulled out their various kits and spread their contents out on the floor so everyone could get a good look at them. There was everything you could expect to find on an M.I. squad. Maybe a little less since they had all packed light for the mission and hadn't expected it to last too long. The regular field gear included M.R.E.s, extra ammo, frag grenades, flash-bangs, lizard lines, and collapsible shock-sticks. T'Phai had some flares and a Powersuit repair kit. Higgins had spare batteries and disks for his camera. Doc had his field medic supplies. Razak had a back-up radio. The most promising of the bunch was Gossard's forced entry kit. It contained four small shape charges, twelve feet of self adhesive HY-DETCORD (High Yield Detonation Cord), a roll of explosive tape, a spray can of explosive foam caulking, ten remote detonators and the remote to set them off. These were all used to gain entrance through locked doors, either by destroying the hinges, the locks, or disintegrating the door frame.

"You've got a lot of bang in that little box, there." said Razak.

Goss shrugged and said, "The problem is that none of these are strong enough to take out a Plasma Bug. Even if they were, there's not enough range on the remote detonators for you to be at a safe distance when you set it off."

They all knew from experience that it took a lot to blow up a Plasma Bug, but once you did, the exploding Plasma was going to cause a wide area of devastation. That's why they were usually taken out with a timed nuke or a Javelin nuke launcher.

Now that he was getting some fluids, Rico was feeling a little better and he scooted closer to the group so he could chime in. "I think that we're thinking about this the wrong way." he said. "I mean, I love big explosions as much as anybody, but we don't actually have to blow it up. We just have to keep it from firing off Plasma. Maybe we could combine this stuff with all the frag grenades and blow off one of it's legs or something."

Razak considered this and said, "I'd hate to use up all our explosives and find out that a Plasma Bug can still stand and fire on only three legs."

"You're right, El-Tee," said Gossard. "but he might be onto something there." He reached down, picked up the HY-DETCORD and just stared at it for a little while, as if he was imagining the possibilities. Then he said, "I think I might have an idea. As long as Rico and Dizzy think they can muster up a little get up and go."

* * *

It was twenty minutes later before the Roughnecks had prepared themselves, located the last Plasma Bug and began their assault. The Bug had moved eleven blocks north from where they had seen it last; most likely it had changed directions when the bombings started to avoid the fate of it's siblings. During the intervening time it had fired off it's Plasma twice, and was halfway charged to fire off again.

The other Plasma Bugs had been successfully destroyed during the bombing, but a few of the Warriors from each of their escorts had managed to escape and they had joined up with the escort for the final Plasma Bug. Their numbers now totaled twenty-two, but this was not a healthy swarm of Warriors. The Roughnecks had taken their toll on them through out the mission and nearly every one of the Warriors were injured in one way or another. Some were limping on mangled legs while others were leaking fluids and organs from their abdomens. A few had been blinded in one eye or the other and they tended to veer off to the side they could see out of when they walked. One of the Warriors had a completely dislocated lower beak that hung down and drug on the ground. As pathetic as these Bugs may have looked, the Roughnecks wouldn't be taking their threat lightly. Any trooper will tell you, if it's a living Bug, it's a dangerous Bug, and the Roughnecks would be treating these as such.

They attacked the escort from behind, first using flash-bang grenades to get their attention and then opening up with their moritas. They used the same careful, controlled fire they had been using all day, never squeezing off a shot unless they were sure it would strike Bug. As expected, the Warriors all moved to the rear of the Plasma Bug and formed a defensive line, blocking the attackers from getting any closer to their charge. The Bugs had never picked up on the presence of the two troopers in Spook Suits, so they still saw Razak's fire-team as the only threat.

As far as Rico and Dizzy were concerned, that was just fine by them. While the rest of their squad attacked from the rear, they approached the Plasma Bug from the front, side by side. They didn't want it to see any motion or hear any noises that would give it cause for alarm, so when they moved, it was slowly and with much stealth.

In one hand, Rico carried the coil of detonation cord, and in the other, a one foot long piece of broken off broom handle. Held flat against her thigh, Dizzy was carrying another short piece of the same broom handle.

When they were only about ten feet away from the slowly advancing Bug, they stopped and squatted down on the ground in front of it. Nice and smooth like, Rico took one end of the detonation cord he was holding and handed it over to Dizzy. Keeping it flat on the ground, they carefully moved away from each other, stringing the length of cord out between them. When it was completely unwound they were about four and a half feet to each side of the Bug's head. At this point, they just sat perfectly still, letting the Bug come to them.

The Bug trudged on. The front of it's head passed over the DETCORD and they tensed, preparing to make their move. As the back of Bug's head came close to the line, they slowly stood up and moved towards each other, placing themselves in the space between the Bug's front legs and it's head. Rico put the piece of broom handle in the same hand with the DETCORD and then in one quick motion, raised his foot and stepped up onto the head of the Bug. The Bug snorted in surprise at this and jerked it's head to the side. Rico was thrown forward onto his belly, and slid down a little but he wasn't thrown off. He reached up with his free hand, secured a handhold on the armor plates covering the Bug's head and pulled himself further up. Dizzy came clambering up the far side like a pirate boarding a ship, simply riding out the Bug's attempts to dislodge them. The two of them met at the top of the Bug's head and tried to avoid knocking each other off while they turned around back to back, sat on their butts and braced their feet against the Bug's armor.

The Bug had stopped moving forward, and was instead sidestepping in a circle, slowly rotating in the middle of the street. It was tossing it's head like a dog with a flea in it's ear, trying unsuccessfully to shake them off. This struck Rico as funny and he had to suppress a laugh. Throughout human history, it was the humans who had been trying to keep the irritating insects off of their heads. Now the tables had apparently turned.

The irony of the situation was completely lost on the Bug. It was emitting a noise which Johnny could only assume was some kind of distress call. It was a low bellowing sound, with low frequency infrasonic vibrations in it. While they couldn't hear some of the lower sounds, they could definitely feel them. They could feel a dull ache in their sinuses, at the base of their skulls, and in their inner ears. Their Spooks Suits didn't like the sound any better, they could feel them having random ticks and spasms all over their bodies. Rico had heard before that those kinds of low frequency sounds could be detected from miles away. He hoped that any Bugs that might be out there listening were too busy to come running to the rescue.

The escort Warriors were hearing the Plasma Bug's calls for help, but as far as they could see, there was nothing visibly wrong with it. It must have seemed to them that the big Bug had come unhinged, gone a little loopy. They were trying to respond, but their attention was being divided between trying to help it and keeping the trooper fire team at bay. If any of the Warriors tried to get closer to investigate, the Roughnecks would focus their fire on it, cutting it down. The Plasma Bug's panicked cries of alarm actually ended up helping the troopers, leaving the Warriors bewildered and ineffective.

The Bug continued to rotate, it's head slowly swinging past where the heated fight between the Warriors and the troopers was taking place. Rico heard a couple of stray bullets ping off the Bug's armor and he cringed while he muttered about someone's lousy aim. Between the turning, the head tossing, and the danger of being hit by friendly fire, it felt like they were on the world's scariest merry-go-round. Rico and Dizzy did their best to ignore all this chaos and focus on their job.

Flores handed Johnny her end of the DETCORD, which he crossed over his end and then he drew it up close around the Bug's neck. He tied this off with a tight knot, cinching it down hard. While he was working on this, Dizzy was trying to pull off a detonator that she had fastened to her piece of broom stick with a rubber band, not an easy feat considering the thick gloves of her Spook Suit. After a little fumbling, she was able to pull it free and handed it to Rico.

The detonator was a small black box, about an inch square, with two metal prongs sticking out from the bottom of it. Johnny stuck these prongs into the knot he had tied in the detonation cord, forcing them down into the tightly wound, sticky fibers. When he had them all the way in, he wiggled the detonator, making sure it was solidly attached. It didn't feel like it would fall back out.

Now came what Gossard had stressed was the important part. For it to be most effective, the detonation cord needed to be tightly packed into a confined space. The less open air for the force of the blast to escape into, the more damage the DETCORD would cause. In this instance, they needed to get it wedged up into the joint between the Bug's head and it's thorax, in the small space where the two armor plates over-lapped. They waited until the Bug's head was tilted down and then they used the sticks to start shoving the cord down into the narrow crevice. It was a very tight fit. When the head came back up again, it snapped off the last half inch of Johnny's broom stick. That was exactly why they had brought the pieces of broom handle. If they had tried to use their hands to push in the explosive they probably would have gotten their fingers pinched off. They kept going, just making sure to get the sticks back out of the way a little quicker. Dizzy worked her way down her side of the Bug's neck, packing the cord in tight while Rico did the other. Eventually, they had to change positions, maneuvering until that they were hanging nearly upside down off the side of the head. A one handed grip was all the kept them from falling head first into the street, probably to land right where the Bug's front foot would step next. From this angle and with the extra length of the broom handle, they were able to reach nearly all the way under the throat and poke the cord into place. There was a small area about a foot and a half wide in the middle where they couldn't reach, but they didn't think that would be a problem.

Satisfied that the job was done as well as it could be, they pulled themselves back up on top of the head and experienced a bit of head rush. They had to pause for a couple of seconds to let some of the blood drain back out of their heads and to let the dizziness pass. When their vision had stopped spinning, they noted that the Bug had completed it's 360 degree turn and was starting another revolution. If they didn't get off this Bug very soon, they would be finding themselves climbing down in the middle of a swarm of angry Warriors.

"I think I've had enough of this ride." whispered Dizzy. "How about you?"

"I think I saw the exit over this way." Johnny said. He slid down the side of the Bug's head on his back, bracing his feet to slow himself. When he reached the edge, he dropped down onto the ground and then turned to offer Dizzy his hand to help her down. She reached down to accept it and a second later was landing on the ground next to him. Together, they ran toward the next cross street.

As he ran, Rico looked back and saw that the Bug had stopped it's rotating and was moving forward again, coming up the street behind them. It didn't seem to be bothered by the DETCORD, and he wondered if it even noticed it was there at all.

When they stepped around the corner, Rico fell back against the wall of the building, gasping for breath. It was several more seconds before his breathing slowed enough to allow him to speak. When it did, he turned on his com-link and said, "Lieutenant, this is Rico. The Bug is looking very pretty in it's new necklace, and we are in the clear."

"I copy, Sergeant. We are pulling back and will detonate when we are at a safe distance."

Rico heard the rate of gunfire drop off almost immediately as Razak's team disengaged and retreated. There were still occasional bursts, most likely to discourage the more persistant Warrior Bugs. These got quieter as the fire team moved further away.

While they waited, Johnny bent over and rubbed the muscles in his legs. He had felt a little better after drinking the water earlier, back at the little market, but the cramps were returning and his knees ached horribly. Just a little longer, he kept telling himself. It was almost over.

Incredibly, Dizzy seemed to be feeling better. Now that the worst of the danger had passed, her cheerful disposition had returned. While Rico was trying to keep himself from whimpering in pain, she was crouched down by the corner, peeking around at the Bug and rubbing her hands together in gleeful anticipation.

"This is gonna be sweet!" she said with a wicked laugh. "Poor Bug isn't even gonna know what hit it!"

Rico turned his head to look over at her, and then shook it in amazement. "Aren't you exhausted, Diz?"

Dizzy shook her head and said, "I'm too excited to be tired. I'm dyin' to see what happens when the DETCORD goes off. This feels like . . . like . . . well, like the time we left the bag of burning dog poo on Mr Hernandez's porch. Like a prank or something. Know what I mean?"

"You know, " replied Rico. "it's entirely possible that you're crazy. I can't believe that we've been risking our lives here and you're seeing it as some kind of practical joke."

"Oh, come on. Tell me that tagging those Bugs didn't feel like sticking a 'Kick Me' sign on the back of some dork back in high school."

Johnny was quiet for a couple of moments as he searched for the right words to say, then he said in a low mutter, "I don't think I'm a dork."

"Oh, were you one of them?" asked Dizzy, her attention almost completely on the Bug around the corner. "Well, I didn't mean you. I put 'Kick Me' signs on lots of people back in the day. I meant all the other guys I put 'Kick Me' signs on."

For some reason, that didn't make him feel any better and beneath his goggles he was firing daggers at her back. Even though he was a little miffed at her, he had to admit that she was right. He would be kicking himself later if he missed the chance to see what was about to happen to the Plasma Bug. He pushed off from the wall, took a couple of painful steps to the corner to lean over Dizzy and follow her gaze.

The Plasma Bug was less than sixty feet away from them. Just beyond it, they could see the Warrior escort that was returning from it's pursuit of Razak's fire-team. The Warriors were running to catch up with the Plasma Bug. They were right behind it when the DETCORD went off, and they couldn't have picked a worse place to be.

The actual explosion was small and lasted less than a second. There was a sound like a loud barking cough, a flash of light and then powdery smoke puffed out of where they had packed the detonation cord. Though they had been expecting the explosion, both of them were startled when it happened and had to grab at the wall the they were leaning against to keep from falling over.

Rico had expected more BOOM! and at first, he thought maybe it hadn't worked right. He watched anxiously as the Bug kept walking forward, apparently oblivious that anything had happened. But within the next couple of steps, it started to show signs that all was not well. Gradually, it lost it's forward momentum, first slowing and then eventually coming to a stop. It started to sway from side to side, like it was dancing to a slow ballad.

"Ooooh." said Dizzy. "He doesn't look like he feels too good."

The front of the Bug's head slowly tilted down, as if it was only nodding off to sleep, but then it kept tilting, past the limits of how far the joint should have been able to rotate. Liquid began to pour out around the edges, in greater amounts as the head continued to tilt. Something popped, and the head fell all the way forward, the Bug's chin hitting the ground with a heavy crunch. The Plasma Bug, now undeniably dead, decided to take a seat. Half a dozen of the Warriors were squashed flat when that big tail hit the ground.

At this point, Dizzy could no longer hold herself back and she jumped to her feet with a shout of joy, knocking Johnny over in the process. She jumped up and down, hands in the air, cheering like her favorite team was running for a touchdown. Rico didn't bother getting up, choosing instead to just keep watching from where he had fallen on the ground. The show wasn't over yet.

The Bug's Plasma bag deflated as the muscles that were retaining it's contents relaxed. Burning liquid Plasma poured from the Bug's sphincter in a flood that washed over the remaining Warrior Bugs. They tried to flee, but there was no time. The deluge knocked their legs out from under them and they fell thrashing to the ground. In an instant they were covered from mandible to claw tip with the bright blue fire. Frantically, they scrambled to their feet, shrieking in pain and trying to run from their agony, but there would be no escape. Their body fluids were brought to boiling by the intense heat, and the Bug's exoskeletons cracked from the internal pressure. One by one, the Warriors collapsed back into the Plasma and within a few seconds, they were succumbing to their injuries.

* * *

_The Roughnecks had managed to kick in the door to Buenos Aires._

Now it was time to clean out the house.

-----------The Memoirs of Robert Higgins, Fednet Journalist  



	3. part 3: Last of the Tigres

Roughnecks: Starship Trooper Chronicles

episode 133: The Longest Day

Part 3: Last of the Tigres

By Brian Campo

Disclaimer #1:This is a work of fan fiction. It is in no way to be taken as official. If the producers of the series ever see fit to finish it, I would be the first one to plunk down my money to buy a copy. This is simply my way of expressing my affection for a TV series that has brought me many hours of pleasure. This is my version of episode 133, an episode that was planned but never produced by the makers of the series. It is partially based on information about the episode that can be found on the net and stuff that was mentioned on the homefront dvd commentaries. I also borrowed from the original novel for some ideas. The original episode would not have played out like the one I have written. This is just how I would have done it. Hope you like it.

Disclaimer #2: The politics of this story are not necessarily my politics.

_Sixty years ago, the city of Buenos Aires was in an economic slump. In the plains to the west, a drought that was entering it's second decade had withered Argentina's agriculture. In turn, the factories and ports of the city that had processed and exported all that produce, beef, and grain had taken a drastic downturn. The export business had dropped by seventy percent, resulting in high unemployment. High unemployment lead to higher crime, which impacted the city's other big business, tourism. It was a city in rapid decline with no reason to believe that things would get any better._

_It was Esteban Ramiro that turned it all around. Ramiro was a twenty seven year old genius in theoretical physics with a left leaning, socialist bent. At the University of Buenos Aires, he headed up a team of like minded physicists and engineers, none of whom were over the age of thirty-two. Together, they built the first working Cherenkov drive. As any school kid can tell you, the Cherenkov drive changed everything. This new slipspace technology meant that intergalactic travel was suddenly possible and a universe of resources and possibilities were opened up to us._

_Ramiro may have opened up the universe to the human race, but as far as he was concerned, what mattered most was the city of his birth. In an act of selfless philanthropy, he and his team gave the exclusive rights of their invention to the city of Buenos Aires. Within a matter of months, the first starship yards began to spring up in the place of all the abandoned factories and warehouses of the city's long dead industries. As time passed, Buenos Aires became the top starship building city on the planet. Over the next sixty years a full ninety percent of the starships built came off of Buenos Aires shipyards. One hundred percent of the starships built contained parts built in her factories._

_Almost overnight, it seemed, Buenos Aires boomed. Employment bounced back and the ghettos became middle class neighborhoods. As the economy gained momentum, crime rates dropped, and the tourists returned. Knowing that Buenos Aires was where all the action was going to be, the federation started a fleet academy on the outskirts of the city. Creating homes for all those new workers and cadets caused construction to take off and soon towers of steel and glass were climbing into the city skyline._

_Esteban Ramiro and his Cherenkov drive changed Buenos Aires forever, turning it into the gleaming jewel of South America and making the city essential to human intergalactic space travel. If you were an alien race waging an intergalactic war with said humans, and you wanted to hit them where it would hurt the worst, you could not have picked a better target._

_The Memoirs of Robert Higgins, Fednet Journalist_

* * *

RICO -

Johnny Rico awoke to the sound of a heavy rain and the frantic squirming and contractions of his Spook Suit. He was laying flat on his back in the middle of a street, and when he opened his eyes, he was staring up into a dark, cloud filled sky. The rain spattered on his goggles, making splotches and streaks in the soot that covered them.

"Must have nodded off again." he thought.

He couldn't be sure how long he'd been out, but there hadn't been a hint of rain earlier and there was a steady downpour now. He turned his head to look around, and could see most of his squad facing outward in a loose circle around him, on the lookout for bugs. Further away, he saw his lieutenant with his back to the squad, engaged in what looked like a very lively conversation with himself. He was waving his arms in the air and jabbing his fingers forcefully at someone who wasn't there, driving home some point that the squad couldn't hear. Rico figured he was on the horn, trying to arrange some kind of evac for them, and it wasn't going well. Within the confines of Razak's soundproofed helmet, someone was receiving the full brunt of the El-Tee's displeasure.

Lieutenant Razak's temper might have been a little shorter than usual, but that was understandable. It had been a very long day. To Rico, it felt like the longest day of his life. It had started over twenty hours ago at a supply depot in northern Oregon. The Bugs had used a new weapon to incapacitate all the psychics in the Federation, including Alpha Squad's own psychic, Carl Jenkins.

With the help of a genetically engineered canine, the Roughnecks had tracked the source of the attack on the psychics to a cave system in the jungles of Guatemala. After fighting their way through a swarm of Spider-Bugs and past a trio of Shield Bugs, the troopers had successfully destroyed the weapon.

Soon, they would discover that the attack on the psychics had only been a diversion from the Bug's far more sinister plan. With the psychics all out of commission, there was no one to warn of the kamikaze Transport Bug that was about to impact itself right into the heart of Buenos Aires. When the Transport Bug hit ground, further devastation had been caused by thousands of large meteors dragged along in it's gravitational pull. A massive smoke cloud now covered the city, hiding the full extent of the damage, but early estimates of the dead numbered in the millions.

Among the Roughnecks, the attack on Buenos Aires hit closer to home for some than for others. Literally. The city was the hometown for troopers Johnny Rico, Dizzy Flores, Jean Razak, and the squad mate they'd been forced to leave behind in Oregon, Carl Jenkins. The horror of it weighed heaviest on them. While they forged ahead, trying to do their jobs, they were privately struggling with fears and anxieties that threatened to overwhelm them. Somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, their friends and family could be dead or dying, and the military response so far had seemed excruciatingly slow.

SICON forces had converged on the city, but a mobile battery of Plasma Bugs had held off any large transports from landing to offload troops and supplies. As one of the few squads lucky enough to slip past the deadly Plasma barrage, the Roughnecks had been sent in to eliminate the Plasma Bugs. To aid them in their mission, they used top-secret, previously untested in the field camouflage technology. This technology came in the form of "Spook Suits" and while they had nearly as many drawbacks as advantages, the suits had allowed troopers Rico and Flores to sneak past an escort of Warrior Bugs and plant homing beacons on the Plasma Bugs. With the help of Fleet bombers and some unconventional use of DETCORD, the Plasma Bug battery had been destroyed.

It had been a very long day and they were all running on fumes at this point, none more so than Rico and Flores. The Spook Suits seemed to be living things, some kind of symbiotic parasite and a major side effect of wearing one is that it severely dehydrated it's host. The suits could only be safely worn for a couple hours at a time, and they were well past that limit now.

With their mission completed, Alpha Squad had started the long hike back through the abandoned, ash covered streets of north Buenos Aires. The plan was to reach their commandeered transport, an electrician's utility truck that they had left parked miles away. Once they reached the truck, they could drive the last few miles back to the airport at the northern edge of the city. But they had only made it a couple of blocks before the two troopers wearing Spook Suits had started to succumb to their side effects.

For some reason, the suits seemed to be affecting Rico far more than they were getting to his squadmate, Dizzy Flores. It could have been that she'd gotten a little more sleep than he had the day before, or she'd managed to get more water down when they'd had the chance a few hours earlier. Whatever the reason, while she was tired and sore, she hadn't yet reached the levels of distress that Rico had. His walk had become very unsteady, never in a straight line but weaving from the right to the left. His head kept trying to outrun his body, and he'd nearly fallen forward onto his face numerous times. When he straightened up, trying to keep his balance, he'd nearly ended up falling over backwards. A black cloud at the periphery of his vision kept threatening to close in on him.

For the eighth or ninth time, Lieutenant Razak asked him if he was okay, and Rico had responded once again that he was, but this time the words had come out in a drunken slur. Looks had passed between Razak and the squad's medic, Richard 'Doc' Lecroix and then the Lieutenant had called a halt, telling Dizzy and Rico to take a load off. Rico had dropped where he stood and flopped out on the ground. Dizzy came shuffling up next to him and then followed suit. They were both breathing hard, like they had just finished a half mile sprint.

Doc had knelt down next to them and offered them some water from his canteen. With a little help, Dizzy was able to sit up, raise the bottom of her respirator a little and take a few sips from the canteen. When Rico tried, though, he'd retched, dry heaved and waved the canteen away before falling back. When he looked up, the buildings above him seemed to slowly rotate around him and combined with the ash slowly falling from the sky, he felt like he was inside a snowglobe that someone had given a good shake. He closed his eyes and hoped the world would stop spinning.

That was the last thing he remembered before the patter of the rain and the renewed movement of his Spook Suit. Over the last few hours, the movements of the symbiotic parasite had become more lethargic, mirroring his own. Now, the rain seemed to have woken it, too. The sensation of the suit's slimy inner surface squirming against his bare skin wasn't doing anything for his nausea. He raised one hand above his face to look at it, and could see tiny pores on the suit's skin opening and closing, as if they were tiny mouths trying to drink up the rainwater. His flesh crawled in revulsion at the very sight of it.

Looking past the hand, Rico saw something that caught his interest. He brought the hand down and wiped it across his goggles, clearing away some of the ashy sludge for a better look. As he squinted at the sides of the buildings that receded into the dark sky above him, he thought that maybe he could see the brickwork with just a little more clarity than he had when had first flopped down there. Like maybe the rain was clearing the air just a bit.

"How long has it been raining?" His words came out in a croak.

"I don't know." he heard Dizzy say. "Half an hour, maybe?"

"I must have been seriously out."

"They keep checking you to make sure you haven't died on us."

Rico started to laugh, but it quickly turned to a cough, and then he realized it wasn't that funny. The urge to just lay there and drift off back to sleep was powerful, but Rico fought it. He turned over onto his side, then struggled his way to a sitting position. His stomach rolled in protest at the sudden movement, so he just sat there for a minute with his head slumped and his eyes closed, letting it settle. The immediate threat of vomiting having passed, he reached up to pull the respirator part of the way out and took a trial breath of air. It was like he thought; just the barest hint of smoke. Rico pulled the respirator the rest of the way out and set it on the ground, then pulled the goggles free, too. Using both hands, he shoved the cowl of the Spook Suit toward the back of his head, pushing his face through the mouth hole. The elastic flesh of the suit stretched to accommodate his head and when his head was free, the cool rain felt delicious on his bare skin. He tilted his head back, letting the fall on his parched face, and taking in deep breaths of cool, clean air.

Doc noticed what he was doing, and said, "Rico, you really should be using the respirator. There's got to be all kinds of junk floating around in this air."

Rico shook his head. "It's okay. The rain is clearing the air up."

Doc continued to protest, but Rico ignored him, choosing to focus instead on extracting himself from the Spook Suit. He grabbed the part of the suit that was bunched up around his neck and pulled, stretching the hole wide enough to wriggle a shoulder up through it. A little more wrestling freed an arm to the elbow and then he was pulling his hand out, turning the sleeve inside out. The other arm came out even easier and then he was able push the suit down to his waist, leaving the top half of his body bare and blessedly free of the suit's claustrophobic grip.

Hearing Doc admonishing Rico, Corporal Jeff Gossard had turned to see what was going on, and seeing Johnny's state of undress, he said, "Whoa there, Sarge. Pull that suit down any further and we're going to lose our PG rating."

"I'm pretty sure we've been running with a PG-13 for a while now, Goss." said Rico. "What with Higgin's potty mouth."

Bobby Higgins, who's nuclear option for cursing was, "Ah, heck." spun around to object to this attack on his character. Before he could get going, Dizzy cut him off with one of the squad's most popular refrains: "They're only messing with you, Bobby." then said, "Does the fact that I can see Rico's buttcrack affect the rating?"

"It affects my ability to not picture Rico's buttcrack." said Goss as he turned back to resume his watch. "Bad form, Diz."

Seeing that Rico wasn't immediately dying from exposure to the air, Dizzy sat up next to him and removed her own goggles, respirator, and cowl. She took a couple of deep breaths of the cool, moist air and then scowled sideways at Rico, envious of his partial nudity.

Johnny, meanwhile, was beginning to feel as though the cooling rain was reviving him, clearing up his head. Even his nausea seemed to be fading.

"Hey, Doc." he said. "Let me have another shot at that canteen."

Doc reached over and handed him the canteen while saying to both of them, "If you end up with mesothelioma or something, just remember I warned you."

"I'll risk it." Rico took a sip from the canteen, swallowed it, and was delighted that it stayed down. He took a few more drinks and thought he might live after all.

Razak agreed. "You're looking better, Sergeant." he said as he came striding over to join the squad. "Thought we were going to have to put you down for a while there."

"For a while there, I kind of wished someone would. What's the word from on high, sir?"

"The word is SNAFU." said the Lieutenant. "HQ absolutely, emphatically can not spare us any kind of transport for an evac."

He paused for the groans and grumbles, giving Goss the chance to interject, "The 'F' stands for 'Fouled', Higgins."

Razak, understandably baffled, said, "What?"

"Sorry, sir." Gossard explained. "As a squad, we've decided to try to help Higgins integrate into polite society."

Razak took it in, nodded and then rolled with it. "A noble, but, I fear, ultimately futile endeavor."

Higgins didn't respond, only muttered unintelligibly to himself.

"Rico and Flores can not walk all the way back to the truck." Doc stood up and turned to face Razak. "They're both exhibiting symptoms of extreme dehydration, and should be on IV fluids right now. Walking that far, especially in the Spook Suits, could kill them."

"There is a Plan B." said Razak.

Dizzy rolled her eyes. "And as we all know, the 'B' in 'Plan B' usually stands for Bull-."

"-derdash'" Goss cut her off. "The 'B' stands for 'Balderdash'. Honestly, Diz, how do you expect the kid to learn?"

Razak ignored them. "Plan B is a detour. Some folks have set up an aid station at a high school only about half a mile from here. I'm told we can hole up there until they can spare us a transport."

At the mention of the school, Dizzy and Rico looked at each other.

"Too close to be ours." said Rico.

"Gotta be Freemonte." replied Dizzy. "Enemy territory."

"Walking to the truck is sounding better and better." said Rico.

"Stow that." said Razak. "I'm sure that your old cross town rivals will be the very paragons of hospitality, so don't even start."

"I hear what you're saying, El-Tee." said Rico. "but I would like to point out just one thing. As a teacher at B.A. High, to those savages at Freemonte, you're enemy, too."

Razak snorted and shook his head. "Grow up, sergeant. I'll expect you both to be on your best behavior." Then pointing at the canteen, he said, "Now, drink up. We move out in five."

After he had turned away, Rico and Dizzy discreetly bumped fists and whispered, "Go, Tigres."

Doc trailed after Razak as he walked away, still having two cents he wanted to pitch in. "Even half a mile in those suits might be too much for them, sir."

"I'm open to suggestions, Doc. What do you got?"

"We have to get them out of the suits. Top priority."

"And what will they wear?" asked Razak. "Can't have them running around in the buff."

"There's got to be something they could wear in one of these buildings. We could start kicking in some doors until we find something."

As Rico looked up and down the block, he couldn't help but have his doubts. They were in a business area, and the street was lined with office buildings. Insurance salesman, lawyers, travel agents, and tech companies. Not a lot of opportunities for a new wardrobe.

Doc continued to make his case. "Even if we manage to find them clothes, they should probably be carried there on stretchers."

Rico made a sour face and leaned over to whisper to Dizzy, "Ain't no way I'm getting carried into Freemonte on a stretcher."

"Ditto on that." she said.

Rico took another long pull from the canteen, then handed it over to Dizzy. He pulled his feet up close and using a hand on the ground to push off, stood up. For a few seconds he stood there, swaying, finding his balance. He felt about as steady as a newborn fawn, but was able to keep himself from toppling over.

"Doc," said Razak. "I don't have stretchers anymore than I got spare sets of clothes, and we really don't have time to find or make them. Time spent on a scavenger hunt is time we could be using getting them to the aid station, where they could be treated. We just have to get as much water as we can into them and then get them there as fast as possible. We'll fireman carry them if they start lagging."

Rico shuffled past them, his feet squelching through the ash-based mud that covered the ground. His gait was a little herky-jerky, not unlike that of a drunk. The arms of his Spook Suit were swinging limply around, threatening to entangle his legs. Razak watched him go past, one eyebrow arched.

"Rico? Where are you headed?"

Rico pointed up the block. "Casper and Gomez, Attorneys at Law."

Razak looked toward the end of the block, where he could see the law office on the corner. "I don't think they're open."

On the corner in front of the law office was a bus stop and a concrete garbage bin. When Rico reached the corner, he stopped to remove the lid of the garbage can and pull out the metal inner liner. Then he turned, took a couple of steps to build up momentum, and smashed the can into the window of the law office. The plate glass shattered at a cringe inducing volume.

"That's vandalism." called out Razak. "You are vandalizing an attorney's office."

"Spook Suit induced dementia, sir." Rico yelled back. "Can't help myself." He attacked the window again, knocking loose any pieces that had survived his first strike.

The rest of the squad moved in Rico's direction for a closer look. T'phai offered Dizzy a hand to help her to her feet, which she gratefully accepted, and then they brought up the rear. As they neared the corner, Rico was setting aside the garbage can and reaching inside to grab a hold on the drapes that hung there.

"Can I borrow someone's knife?" he asked while he gave the drapes a sharp tug. They came part of the way free with the sound of tearing fabric, and then, once he had yanked a few more times, came sliding out the window.

Razak pulled his combat blade out of it's sheath and held it out to Rico, handle first. "I thought you always had that Swiss Army knife on you?"

"I didn't have any place to hide it this time."

Doc chuckled and said, "Am I the only one who is simultaneously relieved and disappointed to hear that?"

Rico took the knife, and held it in his clenched teeth while he first held the drape up to shake it out, and then folded it in half. He handed the drape to Goss with the fold at the top, saying, "Hold this."

Goss held it up for him, and and watched the knife blade warily as Rico used it with unsteady hands to cut a foot wide slit at the middle of the fold. Then he turned to reach back into the window, to cut himself a few feet of curtain cord.

Dizzy was starting to see the method to his madness and moved over to start pulling the other drape out of the window. Rico handed the knife and cord to Razak, and then reclaimed his drape from Gossard. He slung it over his head and slid his head through the hole he had cut. It fell over him like a poncho, the length reaching a little past his knees. The cord he used for a belt, cinching the drape just above his waist.

"You may not want to watch this next part." he told them. He ran his hands up under the poncho, hooked his thumbs on the waist of the Spook Suit and started shoving it down. The squad found something else to look at while he struggled to get the suit off of his legs. The suit wasn't coming off without a fight. At the end, he was breathing hard, stepping on it with one foot while he tugged and pulled himself free with the other. Higgins stepped in to help pin it with one boot while he hopped and pulled the last foot free.

"Sweet relief." he sighed when he had at last kicked it away. He stood in the falling rain and smiled.

"What do you plan to do for shoes?" asked Razak.

Rico shrugged. "I'll go barefoot. I can do half a mile barefoot."

Goss held Dizzy's drape for her while she cut the hole for her head and then she asked T'Phai to hold it up in front of her while she got out of her Spook Suit. Gossard found cause for objection in this.

"Hold on. Why T'phai?"

"Why T'phai, what?" Her lip curled with annoyance.

"Why have T'Phai hold the curtain and not me? You think T'Phai is more trustworthy than me?"

She gave him a flat stare for a couple of moments, and then said, "Is this something I actually have to explain?"

"I'm sensing some kind of discrimination here, Diz."

"Look," she explained in the kind of tone you would use to explain something to a toddler, or a neo-dog. "if I catch T'Phai peeking, I'll know he's not being a perv, it's just out of scientific curiosity."

"Fair enough. How about I promise that if I peek, it's only in the name of science?"

"Goss, give T'Phai the drape."

"You know what you are, Flores? You're a speciesist. Some kind of self-loathing speciesist "

Dizzy tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and slowly exhaled. Tiny nods of her head indicated that she might be silently counting to ten. "Goss?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm remembering how roguishly handsome you looked that time you had to wear an eyepatch."

"Oh?" He donned a pleasantly surprised smile. "Do tell."

"Yep." she said. "If you don't hand T'Phai the drape, I'm going to put you back in an eyepatch."

His smile faded. "Oh."

He handed the drape to T'Phai and went to stand next to Doc. Leaning over to whisper, he said, "That didn't come off as sexual harassy, did it?"

"A little bit." Doc nodded thoughtfully. "A little bit sexual harassy."

T'Phai held up the drape, providing Dizzy with a little privacy. While she stripped out of her Spook Suit, he said, "You do not have to worry, Dizzy. I will not be peeking. A trooper on the Valley Forge showed me a periodical that was full of images detailing Terran female anatomy. I assure you, I learned all I care to know."

Dizzy wasn't sure how to respond to that, so she only said, "Um, thanks, T'Phai."

* * *

RAZAK -

Once Dizzy was changed into her make-shift poncho, they made a few last preparations before heading out. First, the Spook Suits themselves would have to be dealt with. SICON regulations insisted that the suits could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands, so if they could not be returned to supply, they must be destroyed. While Rico and Dizzy strongly felt that they should be destroyed immediately, Razak quashed that, saying that they had neither the time nor the resources to make sure the job was done correctly. Instead, he ordered Higgins to empty out the bag from the garbage can and use it to carry the suits. And since his hands would be full with the bag and his camera, Razak suggested that perhaps Higgins should let Dizzy use his Morita Rifle. No suggestion was made that perhaps the rifle might be put to better use in Dizzy's hands than it would in Bobby's.

There was no extra Morita for Rico, but Razak handed him his .45 automatic sidearm and it's spare clip. "It ain't much against a Bug," he said. "but it's better than hurling curses."

When they moved out, Razak and T'Phai took the lead, followed by Dizzy, Rico, and Higgins. Gossard and Doc brought up the rear. It was the two shoeless troopers that set the pace. They picked their way slowly, using the helmet lights of their fellow troopers to avoid stepping on any sharp objects hidden in the mud covered streets. They were able to make better time once they moved out of the area that had been damaged by bombs and the passage of Plasma Bugs. It made for less rubble and broken glass to avoid.

Their destination was a half mile southwest, as the crow flies, but was actually further once you factored in the city blocks they had to zigzag through. At first, they had the streets to themselves, but the closer they got to the school, the more people they began to see. The vast majority of these were on foot.

One of the joys of living in Buenos Aires was it's public transportation system. It's network of high speed subways and monorails could only be matched by a few other cities on the planet. The system was so fast, efficient and cheap that most people who lived here relied on it entirely and only about one in ten even owned a car. The problem was that all those trains relied on the city's power grid and the power had gone out when the Transport Bug hit.

On the good side, fewer cars had meant that the streets had not become clogged with traffic jams after the initial attack. But the bad side was that moving from one place to another in Buenos Aires now required you to cross potentially bug infested territory on foot.

Word had gotten out that people were gathering at Freemonte, and other places around the city that were adjacent to large open fields. The logic was that once the evacuation transports started coming in, they would be using the football and soccer fields at the schools and stadiums for landing pads. So far, there had been no official word that this was, in fact, true. It just seemed to be accepted wisdom.

The refugees were moving in groups, and there were a few members of each of these groups that were armed. Citizens you could identify easily. They were the ones with the automatic weapons. Occasionally you would see a civilian with the only weapon they were legally allowed to carry; a bolt action hunting rifle capable of holding only one round at a time. Technically, the civilian should only be using the gun in a designated hunting range with a hunting license and tag or on a federally operated target range, but shortly after the Bugs had invaded earth, the federation had declared the entirety of the planet earth to be a Bug hunting range, and that there was a no limit open season on all Arachnids.

Razak couldn't help but feel sorry for the civilians. Unless you were very familiar with Bug anatomy and were a very good shot, those single shot rifles were not going to be of much use should a Bug come charging at them. But it also made sense that they were carrying the guns anyway. In situations like this, any hope, no matter how feeble, was better than no hope.

Besides, he knew why the civilians were not allowed to have better weapons. He'd spent years teaching students that there was no point in limiting a civilian's voting power if you left them with any significant firepower.

Along with ever increasing groups of people, the squad began to see an increase in Bug activity, also. At first, it was only a Hopper or Rippler spotted on a rooftop, a clatter, a swift moving silhouette, and then the beat of wings. These Bugs did not attack, so they may have only been operating as scouts. Soon, though, they began to see lone Warrior Bugs coming from the south, and these Bugs were definitely on the offensive. They threw themselves at the clusters of humans, causing as much chaos and damage as they could before they were cut down by gunfire. The Bugs weren't coming in large numbers yet, but Razak knew that it was only a matter of time.

A squad of MI troopers seemed like a good bet for traveling companions and soon the smaller groups of people they met along the way were merging into a large crowd around the Roughnecks. The crowd grew until it filled the entire width of the the city street and extended back a block and a half. Razak tried to keep some kind of order to the procession, encouraging those with weapons to move to the outer edges of the group, but the people were scared and everyone was shouting at once, so there was not much chance of organizing them. Even using his helmet's loudspeaker technology, he couldn't make himself heard over the clamor. He gave up and focused on keeping them moving, trying to get them to Freemonte as quickly as possible.

In all this confusion, Razak quickly lost track of his squad. T'Phai had stayed close to his lieutenant's position at the head of the throng, but everyone else had been swallowed up by the droves of refugees. Worried that he might lose someone, he tapped his com, and said, "Alpha Squad, sound off." Over the next few seconds the squad checked in, with the exceptions of Rico and Flores. For a moment, he worried that he may have let them fall behind somewhere, but then he remembered that the mics for their coms had been in the respirators the troopers had discarded. They could still receive through their ear pieces, but could not broadcast. He kicked himself for not thinking about it earlier.

"Anyone got eyes on Rico and Flores?"

Higgins came back. "I'm right next to them. We're good."

"Stay with them." Razak told him.

Just like the humans, the Bugs were forming up into larger packs also, so far in groups of only three or four. They were trying to hamper the group's advance and prevent them from reaching the shelter of the school. Razak knew that the if they allowed themselves to be slowed down, it would only let more Bugs amass against them, so he kept pressing forward, opening up with his Morita on any bug that tried to block their way. T'phai kept pace with him, working his one-shot, one-kill magic on the Warriors.

Encouraged by how easily T'phai was doing with every single shot, a short, portly man carrying a hunting rifle pushed his way up out of the crowd. Over business attire he was wearing a soot covered yellow rain slicker and over the slicker, he had a bandoleer full of rifle cartridges strapped across his chest. He was breathing hard from the brisk pace of the walk and rain was running down the lenses of his glasses. At the sight of the next Warrior Bug, he excitedly raised his gun and fired. The bullet chipped a small pock mark into the beak of the Warrior, which didn't even seem to notice that it had been shot. T'phai leaned over slightly to angle a shot up under the Bug, and when he fired, it spasmed and toppled over.

"How the heck does that Skinny keep doing that?" said the civilian as slid another round into his gun.

Razak cringed at the word the man had just called his friend and squadmate, and felt his face flush with anger. "His kind are called Tophetti." he growled.

"Really? I thought they called 'em Skinnies." He worked the bolt, raised the gun, aimed, fired and annoyed another Bug.

"No. That was the name we gave them when we were at war with them." Razak paused long enough fire a burst into a Warrior that had come screeching out of a side alley. "It's a dehumanizing, derogatory slur."

The man turned to look at T'phai, then back to Razak. "Dehumanizing?"

"Yup." said Razak. "He finds it offensive." Then he turned his head so that he could look the man in the eye. "I find it offensive, too"

"Oh. I, uh, um," the man stammered. "I understand. I'm sorry, didn't mean anything by it." He turned to T'phai, and apologized again.

Satisfied, Razak said, "Now, if you ask T'phai nicely, he'll probably tell you how he kills Bugs like that."

With his usual politeness, T'phai told the man how to locate the nerve cluster on the Warrior's underside that would cause instant death if you could shoot it. Of course, this much easier described than actually done. It helped it you had a Tophetti's eagle eyed vision and steady aim. Razak consider himself a good shot, but he could not take out a Bug with a single bullet like the Tophetti could. T'phai continued to coach the man as they encountered more bugs along the way but he might as well have been trying to teach the man to fly. He just couldn't get the knack of it.

Still, the man's shots were all hitting the Bugs, and the sound of his gun was contributing to the overall threatening appearance of the group, so he saw no harm in letting the man keep shooting. The way Razak figured, if they made enough racket, it might discourage a Warrior or two from coming at them.

It felt like they had been walking for hours when Razak and the mob he was leading finally arrived on the northeast corner of the Freemonte High School complex. As they rounded the corner and turned right, he was brought to a halt by what he saw there. At first, he could not make heads or tails of what he was looking at. The light was bad and there were just so many things moving all at once. When he started to make sense of what he was seeing, he realized that it was hundreds of people all converging on one spot from all points of the compass all at once. Interspersed among these people were many, many Bugs. It was a scene of absolute chaos. The night sky was filled with a cacophony of screams, shouts, and shrieks. He heard gunfire and he could have sworn that he heard bullets buzz past, just a few feet over his head. Across the street, there was a parking lot in front of the school and in this space, multiple fires were burning. He could not tell if they had been intentionally started or not. Some of the fires looked like they might have been burning vehicles.

He didn't know how long he had been standing there staring when he heard T'Phai say his name. Razak shook off the shock of what he was seeing. When he had stopped, the crowd had halted behind him. They could not stay here, they must move. Despite the terrain they would have to cross to get there, the school still offered their best chances of survival.

"Keep moving!" he shouted at the crowd. "We are surrounded by friendlies. Be very careful what you shoot at. Do not shoot unless you are certain you have the shot!" If anyone had heard a thing he'd said, they gave him no indication. There was no time to try again. He had to get them moving. He turned and moved forward into the madness. The mass of people surged after him.

In the space that they were now crossing, anarchy ruled. Between the falling rain and the darkness, he could only see a few feet ahead at any given time. The lamp on his helmet was next to useless. He caught glimpses of running people, lit up for only a second in the barrel flash of firing guns.

A Bug was tearing and stabbing at something on the ground, something Razak didn't want to look too close at. As he approached, the Warrior turned to rush at him in a clatter of hard claws on pavement. He filled his guns sights with it's ugly face and went full auto on it. It teetered, stumbled sideways, then fell over onto it's side and thrashed. It's legs flailed at the air as it struggled to rise. Razak saw the man in the yellow rain slicker run up next to it, aim his rifle at the nerve cluster and fire at point blank range. The Bug kicked, went rigid and then went limp. The man did not take time to celebrate, just wasted a second on stunned surprise that it had actually worked, before reloading and moving on.

Tiny pieces of asphalt exploded from the ground dead ahead, someone's machine gun fire gone wild. Razak cursed the fool as he skipped to the side to avoid being shot. Someone barreled into him from behind, nearly knocking him right off of his feet. For a second there, he didn't think he could keep from going down as he continued to be buffeted by running people. When he found his balance again, he poured on the speed, trying to get back to T'Phai's side. There was an opening in the crowd to his left and he bolted for it.

It turns out that the opening was caused by people trying to avoid a Warrior Bug that was coming from that direction. By the time he saw the Bug, it was suddenly so close he didn't have room to line up his gun on it. At the last instant, he twisted and dropped, landing on his hip and skidding under the Warrior's scissoring mandibles. His momentum carried him under the Bug and he fired up as he slid, leaving a line of perforations along the Bug's underside. Twisting and turning, he came up on a knee as he cleared the other side with his Morita aimed at the back of the Warrior's thorax. It was already weaving like it was on the way down, but he put another burst into it, just to be sure.

His gun went dry, so he took a moment to switch out the clip as the wave of running people washed past him. Then he was off and running, trying to get back to the front. That was where he could do the most good, running interference. The crowd packed him in, leaving him no opening to squeeze through. No matter which way he tried to go, there was just no give in that mass of bodies. Giving up on trying to shove his way through, he used the jump jets on his power suit to launch himself to the front of the line. From the air, he spotted the Tophetti and the man in the yellow slicker and he angled his flight towards them. He cuts the jets and landed hard, his feet throwing up a splatter of mud. They both seemed surprised at his sudden appearance.

They were getting close to the front of the school, and Razak could see that someone had been setting up some defenses. A line of large vehicles formed a wall across the front of the building, made up of city buses, school buses, utility vehicles, fire trucks, ambulances, and a variety of police vehicles, including a SWAT van, prisoner transport vans, and even an armored personnel carrier. It appeared that all the local emergency responders had decided they could do the most good by relocating their bases of operations to the school, and had brought everything but the kitchen sink with them.

There was space in the barricade close to where the front entrance of the building would be, and the crowd was piling up there as it funneled through the narrow gap. There were armed men and women up on top of the wall of vehicles, keeping the Bugs from breaching the defenses and providing cover fire for the people on the ground. The fire engine had it's pumps running and a firefighter was manning a water cannon on top of it, using it to beat back any Bug that approached.

A pack of five Warriors came skittering along in front of the wall, headed for the mass of people gathered at the opening. Razak and T'Phai moved to cut them off. The man in the yellow slicker tried to come with them, but Razak told him to go back, to get inside. The hurt expression on the man's face was just about the saddest thing Razak had ever seen, but he did as he was told.

The troopers received assistance of another kind as they closed in on the Bugs. It's arrival was heralded by heavy thumps, the hiss and clunks of hydraulic pistons, and flashing red lights. Then an honest to god mech came stomping out of the darkness. It wasn't a marauder, but it was similar in size and build to one of the mobile infantry's APE marauders. This was the civilian version, built for fire departments, with a flashing light whirling on each shoulder. The glass of the cockpit window was a highly reflective silver, impossible to see through from the outside. The mech was painted red, but right now, that paint job was covered in what looked like a liberal application of Bug juice. It had no guns, and no armor other than heat shielding. In place of a marauder's cannon, it had a rack full of attachments that it could fit onto it's arms, a variety of tools that firemen were likely to use. Currently, one arm ended in a saw attachment, something you might use if you had to cut through a wall or through a wrecked vehicle. The other arm ended in a thick, heavy, three foot long pry bar.

The driver of the mech raised the pry bar and charged at the Bugs. Just a couple of strides put the mech close enough to stab at the nearest Bug, and it punched the yard of metal through the Bug's shell. The weight of the mech drove the Bug to the ground and pinned it there. Knocking aside the swiping claws with the other arm, the driver stepped the mech in closer. The saw attachment screamed to life and was shoved into the junction where the thorax and mandibles connected. The pinned Bug shrieked and jerked as the blade tore through it's shell, spraying the Bug's vibrantly colored fluids into the air.

The mech operator had succeeded in drawing the Bug's attention away from the crowd, but they were about to find themselves in trouble. The other four Bugs were coming to avenge their comrade, climbing over each other to get at the fire-mech. Their claws would tear through that heat shielding like it was made of paper if they were given a chance to get that close.

T'Phai and Razak provided the driver with some support, squeezing off shots as they ran to their aid. It divided the Bug's attention long enough for the firefighter to disengage the tools from the Bug they'd been sawing on and prepare to defend their self. As the Bug's closed in on the mech, it swung both arms back and leaned forward. When one of the Warriors came in range, it stepped forward and swung both arms up, hard. The heavy metal attachments at the end of the arms connected under the lower beak of the Warrior with a deafening crack. The Bug was lifted off of the ground and sent flying backward into his cronies, his legs trailing limply behind him. As all four Bugs went down in a tangle, the mech driver pressed their advantage, stepping closer to jab with the pry bar and hack with the saw.

The two troopers had reached the firefighter's side and were firing into the pile of Bugs. Between the Bug's thrashing limbs and the firefighter's flashing lights, it wasn't easy to pick out any good targets in the mess, so they just kept firing into the pile and hoped that they'd hit something important. After a few more moments, the mound of Bugs stopped twitching and lay still.

The mech turned toward Razak and the rough voice of an older woman with a smoking habit came from it's external speaker. "Thanks for the assist, troopers."

Razak used the index finger of his mechanical hand to flip his visor down a little before letting it pop back up, then said, "Glad we could be of any help, ma'am."

The mech saluted back, it's pry bar clanking against the roll bar over the cock pit. It turned and stomped back out across the parking lot, and soon only it's flashing lights could be seen.

"He was a very good at killing Bugs for a simple firefighter." said T'Phai. So far, T'Phai had not managed to learn how to tell human males and females apart just based on the sound of their voices.

"I believe that was a woman." Razak replied. "She was probably a vet. Most of the civil services are made up of veterans. Come on, let's get inside."

Razak turned on his coms as he and T'Phai jogged back toward the opening in the wall. "Alpha Squad, rendezvous on me once you get inside the wall. I'll be waiting by the . . ." He turned to look at the utility truck he was passing and read the company name off of the door. "North B.A. Electric Co-op truck to the left of the opening."

Doc and Gossard acknowledged, and then Higgins acknowledged on behalf of himself and the two troopers he was traveling with. Razak and T'Phai hugged the wall, pushing themselves through the crowd towards the opening. They cut their way into the queue up near the front, earning themselves some complaints and dirty looks. The line moved forward at a slow crawl and Razak was beginning to consider using his jets to jump the wall when they finally got through the entrance. Once they were on the other side, Razak hooked a left and went to wait for the rest of his squad to arrive.

Nearly ten minutes passed before he saw the first of them. Higgins, Rico and Flores came walking up, the latter two looking like they'd been put through the ringer. They were limping and the looks on their faces suggested that there were very few steps left in them before they collapsed.

Rico handed Razak back his .45 saying, "It's empty."

"You guys catch some action?" Razak slipped the handgun back into the holster on the back of his belt.

"Some." said Dizzy. "You should have seen these guys. Once Rico's gun was empty, both of them were hiding behind me. Like scared kittens, they were, but I kept 'em safe. Didn't I, boys?" She punched Higgins in the shoulder. Higgins scowled at her.

Rico looked too tired to feel offended. He just nodded and yawned. His drapery had soaked up the rain, and he was no longer overheating. He was shivering, and his teeth chattered. "It was a lot warmer back in the middle of that crowd." he said.

"Yeah," agreed Dizzy. "but people kept stepping on my feet."

Doc and Gossard joined them a few minutes later, and while they had encountered some Bugs of their own at the rear of the column, they were looking none the worse for wear and in their usual cheerful dispositions. With everyone in one piece and accounted for, Razak lead them toward the front doors of the school.

Over the main entrance, there was a sign that read, Freemonte High School, Home of the Terrorbirds. Just as Buenos Aires High's mascot was the prehistoric sabertooth tiger, Freemonte had adapted the long extinct south american nightmare, the terrorbird. In the cartoon picture of it above the school's doors, it looked like the offspring of a romance between an eagle and an ostrich.

Dizzy looked up at it, then turned to Rico and in what sounded like a scottish accent riddled with speech impediments, she said, "My shun, we're pilgrimsh in an unholy land."

"On your best behavior, Flores." warned Razak. "And that was a terrible Sean Connery impression."

"I'll work on it, sir." she said, but she wasn't clear which thing she was promising to work on. As she walked through the door, she sniffed and said, "I smell food. Like, real, not an MRE, cooked, hot food."

Rico inhaled and smiled. "Please don't let it be a trick."

The rest of the squad was taking off their helmets, with the exception of T'Phai. They inhaled and sighed in unison.

"They must be running on propane." said Gossard. "That means they might even have gas powered water heaters."

Rico and Flores looked down at themselves, covered in mud and Spook Suit secretions. "A hot shower?" said Dizzy. "Do I even dare to hope?"

In the hallway the emergency lights were running, providing some illumination. Not enough to read by without giving yourself eyestrain, but bright enough to keep you from walking into walls. It wasn't a steady kind of light, it pulsed like maybe it was running off of a generator somewhere. There were more lines waiting for them, one of which took up about half of the width of the hallway and lead into the cafeteria. Another shorter line started further up the hall. A sign written in black marker on yellow poster board indicated that the shorter line lead to the med station, in the gymnasium. The squad started in that direction, but were stopped when a man came running out of the front office and chased after them, yelling, "Hey! Troopers! Wait!"

He was slim, a clean cut man but with a day's beard growth, probably in his fifties, dressed in a button up white shirt,a tie and tan pants. There was an M4 rifle on a strap slung over his shoulder and in one hand he carried a clipboard with a yellow legal pad attached to it. The front page of the legal pad was covered with notes written in a neat hand. A picture ID badge hanging from his shirt pocket indicated that he was Harold Shubert, the Principal of Freemonte.

"The Mobile Infantry are here?" he asked, his face aglow with the delight of seeing them. "We've been hearing that we shouldn't expect to see any troops for a long while yet." His eyes fell on Rico and Flores and saw the way they were dressed, and that dampened his spirits some.

"I'm afraid it's just us." Razak told him. "We came in on a mission and SICON left us stranded. At this point we're more in need of help than we are able to offer it."

Harold seemed to deflate a little. "That's disappointing. I gotta warn you, you've found yourself in a barely hanging on kind of situation here."

"Well, we're not going anywhere until we can get a transport, and it doesn't look like that is going to happen anytime soon. We'd be happy to pitch in any way we can." Razak pointed at Rico and Flores. "These two need medical attention, but once that's taken care of, we're at your disposal. Doc, there, is a fine medic, Gossard is handy with repairs and making things explode. The rest of us are pretty good at killing Bugs."

Shubert nodded as he listened and when Razak had finished he said, "Don't get me wrong. It's just that I saw troopers and thought the cavalry had arrived. We're glad to have you and I'd appreciate any help you could offer. Now, come on, let's get your people to that aid station."

"Were you able to secure the entire school?" Razak asked as they headed up the hallway.

"Only about half. All the buildings this side of the football field. We've been digging in, putting up what defenses we can. You saw the vehicle wall coming in. We had lots of school buses so it covers three sides of the land we're holding. We pulled a chain link fence up from around our baseball field and stretched it along the southern border. If you tilt a chain link fence the right way and stretch it out a little, it makes a really good bug obstacle. Better than barb wire."

Razak could see how the Warrior's legs could easily get trapped in a fence like that, if you set it up right. Something else was bothering him. "What I don't understand is, with all these buses, why aren't you evacuating?"

"Too many people to take out that way, and no place to go if we did." said Harold. "The streets are still pretty clear here inside the city, but we're hearing that traffic has come to a standstill on all the roads leading out of it. Word is that the traffic jams out on the outskirts are taking a beating from a swarm of those flying Bugs. This place seems like it's about as secure as we could hope for, for the time being."

It really sounded like things were going from bad to worse out there. Razak remembered how heavy and slow the traffic had been near the airport when the squad had come south. If it was like that all over, he could see how easily the Bugs could be gumming up the works. With that many cars trying to leave the city at once, all it took was for the Bugs to hit a few here and there at key intersections and then you had yourself a nice r-triple-d type situation.

"Just how many people do you have here?" he asked the Principal.

Shubert nodded his head to the right and left, silently calculating a rough estimate. "It's got to be closing in on three thousand. That number is increasing steadily."

The line to the cafeteria was on their left as they walked up the hall and at the sight of the troopers, people waiting in the line were shouting out questions, most of them the same questions over and over again.

"Is the military here?"

"What's the word from down south?"

"Are the Bugs coming?"

"When are we getting out of here?"

Shubert just kept saying back, "We don't know. We'll let you know when we know."

They passed the cafeteria and through the doors they could see crowded tables full of people eating. More people were sitting on the ground in clusters, eating off of trays sitting on their laps. The Roughnecks felt their mouths water at the sight of it. They forced themselves to move on, toward the other line further up the hall.

Shubert didn't let them wait in line for medical attention, just one of the perks of bringing your own medic. As they moved past the line for the aid station, there was more of the same questions, mixed in with angry complaints that they were skipping the queue. Shubert responded to the complaints by asking, "When the next wave of Bugs comes, where would you rather these these troopers be? Here, waiting in line, or out on the wall?"

That shut up some of them. One man asked what part of the city they were coming in from. A woman asked if Buenos Aires was the only place that had been hit. What was taking the military so long, a man wanted to know. Someone made a comment about the weather. A woman wanted to know if it was true about the ship yards.

A man with a blood soaked bandage wrapped around his head and his arm in a sling got quite irate when he saw the troopers walking past. "Sure!" he shouted, throwing his good hand in the air. "Why not just let the troops go first?! Us lowly civilians are happy to wait out here with our bleeding head wounds and broken arms! Ain't that how it always is? Wouldn't want to make the troops wait! Oh, no!"

Razak took a few more steps and then stopped. He cocked his head to the side a little, like he was thinking about something. The rest of the squad came to a halt and turned to look at him, puzzled. His head turned to look back the way they had come and his hand came up to scratch at the stubble on the back of his scalp. He looked over at Higgins and then the camera he was holding at eye level. For a few more seconds, he just just stood there, staring off in the distance, as if lost in thought. Finally making up his mind, he handed his helmet to Gossard, then grabbed Higgins by a shoulder pad and pulled him in tow as he headed back down the hall.

As he neared the man in the bandage, he said, "What did you just say?"

The rest of Alpha Squad exchanged uneasy looks. Higgins eyes went wide as he filmed from over the lieutenant's shoulder.

The man in the bandage looked at the gun in Razak's hand and hesitated before replying. "Look, man, I'm just saying. . ." he said. "I mean, here we are, all just waiting our tur-"

"Not you." said Razak. He shoved the bandaged man aside and pointed a gloved finger at the man standing next to him. "You. What did you say?"

This man was neatly dressed, average build, bland features. He pulled back a little when Razak spoke to him and his eyes flicked to the left and right, like he thought Razak might be speaking to someone else. It seemed like he was trying to avoid making eye contact with the lieutenant. The expression on his face was almost, but not quite, uncertainty. He opened his mouth, paused, then closed it again. Then he said, "Afternoon. Lovely weather, wouldn't you say?"

Razak drove the butt of his Morita straight into the bridge of the man's nose, sending him stumbling backwards with his arms pinwheeling. The crowd around them drew back with a collective gasp of shock as the man fell against a mobile infantry recruiting poster taped to the wall behind him. Razak snapped the butt of his gun to his shoulder, and sighted. There was blood gushing from the man's nose, but it wasn't any shade of red. It was the bright green of a Bug's blood. The man looked almost, but not quite, surprised. His flesh rippled, and he began to change shape. Bug-like attributes began to reveal themselves. Compound eyes, mandibles. As the crowd began to scream in terror and fall all over each other to get away, Razak squeezed the trigger. The half man, half bug jerked and danced in the hail of bullets, it's center mass quickly turning to mush. After a few seconds, Razak released the trigger and took a step back. The Bug-man kept standing for a little longer, then it's knees buckled and it collapsed forward onto it's face. Despite being punched full of bullet holes and dripping with Bug juice, the words on the recruiting poster were still legible. JOIN THE MOBILE INFANTRY! DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?

"Imposter Clone Bug." Razak explained to those around him. "Sorry if I frightened anyone."

* * *

DIZZY -

Dizzy sat wrapped in a silver mylar emergency blanket, staring off into space, slack-jawed. Squatting next to her, Doc scrubbed a small spot on her arm, cleaning and disinfecting an area large enough to insert an IV needle. She wasn't a big fan of needles, but she was just too tired to worry about it, or anything else, really. There was a lot of activity going on all around her, but her brain was not acknowledging most of it. She felt checked out, removed from everything else.

Rico had been hooked up to his bag of IV fluids first, since his symptoms continued to be worse than hers. He was sitting next to her in an identical plastic chair, with an identical mylar blanket, and with an identical vacant look on his face. A metal stand with a wheeled base was placed between the two chairs, and the two bags of saline solution hung from it.

The rest of the squad stood nearby along with Principal Shubert, and she was half hearing what they were saying.

"The Imposter Clones have a very limited conversational skills, so you'll want to tell your people at the gate to be on the lookout for anyone using that phrase he kept saying. 'Afternoon. Lovely weather, wouldn't you say?' Higgins, I want you to let Mr Shubert take your camera for a while, so he can show folks what the Imposter Clones look like. Keep in mind that there are a few variants but they all say that same phrase."

That'll go over well, thought Dizzy. Taking Higgin's camera away was likely to leave him curled up in a fetal position.

"In the meantime, Higgins," continued Razak. "I need you to see if you can find Flores and Rico some clothes and shoes. Do you have a lost and found, Mr Shubert?"

"We do but it's been picked clean already." said the principal. "We'll find them something to wear."

"That would be appreciated. Now, Gossard, I need you to start seeing what you can do about bulking up the defenses. Is there someone who can show him what you have on hand?"

"Our maintenance man is in the building manning the generators. He can help Corporal Gossard find anything he needs."

"Good. T'Phai, I think you could do the most good either out on the wall or up on the roof, doing sniper duty."

"Yes, sir. I will go right away." answered the Tophetti before he turned to leave.

"Wait." said Mr Shubert. "When was the last time any of you had anything to eat?"

"My stomach thinks my throat's been cut." said Gossard by way of answer.

"There is plenty of food." he told them. "If you come with me, Lieutenant, I can see to it that the kitchen sets you up with something to eat."

"Again, we would be much obliged, Mr Shubert."

"Think nothing of it. The addition of your squad to our defenses gives me hope that there's a chance we'll get out of this whole mess alive. Why don't you come with me, and we'll get you all set up."

The Principal lead the Razak and the others out to the hall. She heard Razak describing T'Phai's special dietary needs as they went. Dizzy really hoped they didn't forget to bring some food back for her, Rico, and Doc.

Wondering what was taking so long, she turned to check Doc's progress and was surprised to see that the IV was already hooked to her arm, and that he had moved on to help with other patients. She hadn't felt a thing.

They have a pretty good operation going here, she thought as she looked around the gymnasium. There was actually a surprising number of medically trained personnel on hand to offer help to those who needed it. Those ambulances and firetrucks that they had seen parked outside had come with a number of paramedic crews, who were now set up at little stations all over the gymnasium. A man that Dizzy thought might be the school nurse was running triage at the doors, sending the most serious cases on to the paramedics to be treated while the others he was directing into a waiting area with rows of plastic chairs to sit in. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than she would have expected.

She and Rico were sitting in the waiting area and many of the seats around her were full. There were some grumbles and complaints about the wait, the kind of thing you would hear in any emergency room. Some people were second guessing the triage nurse's decisions on who needed treatment first.

Her emergency blanket was helping her feel a little warmer, but the rain soaked drapery was still leaving her chilled. Every few seconds she would give a little shiver. If the choice had been left up to her, she would rather have just gone straight to a hot shower before getting set up with the IV. But Razak was letting Doc call the shots and he thought the IVs could not wait. She could not wait until someone brought her some clothes.

Dizzy could remember when her wants and needs in life used to be more complex and nuanced. Now they had been broken down to the very basics. Warmth. Food. Sleep. That's all she wanted.

From over her right shoulder, she heard the scrape of a chair on the gymnasium floor. She turned to look and saw a man in the corner of the gymnasium who had set up a little area for himself. He looked to be in his sixties, bearded and with long grey hair that was pulled back in a ponytail. He was dressed in camo fatigues, but with the length of his hair and the beard, she figured he wasn't current military, but probably a vet. Whatever it was that he was doing, it didn't seem to be related to the medical treatment that was going on in the rest of the gym. He had a little card table with fold out legs and on it sat some pens, a yellow legal pad, and a battery powered radio of some kind. He was wearing a wireless headset and a microphone was on the desk in front of the radio.

Pinned to the wall behind the table she could see he had a large map and from the look of it, she would say it was a map of Buenos Aires. The map had thumbtacks stuck into it all over and the man was taking some red yarn and winding it around the thumbtacks, connecting them like a dot to dot. Her sleep deprived brain tried to make sense of it, wondering what shape he was making and why he was doing it on the map. Occasionally he would stop, presumably to listen to whatever was coming over the radio, and then he would take another thumbtack, locate some spot on the map and press the tack into it.

Dizzy watched him for several minutes, and then her curiosity began to get the better of her. She turned to Rico and said, "Hey, Rico."

He had managed to nod off and at the sound of her voice, he jerked, looked around like he was trying to figure out where he was, then turned to look at her. "Djoosaymaname?"

"I want to go see what that guy is doing." said Dizzy. She pointed over at the man with the radio.

"Kay." he said, dropping his chin to go back to sleep.

"I want you to come with me." she said. "Come on." She reached over and rattled the IV stand.

Rico shook himself back awake. "Why? What's he doing?"

"I don't know. That's why I want to find out. Come on. Get up." She stood herself up from the chair, swayed, found her balance. She stood there, staring at him expectantly.

Rico looked at her, then over at the radio man, then sighed, "Fine."

They shuffled over, the IV stand's wheels squeaking as it rolled between them. She saw that she had been right, that it was a map of the city. They stood a few feet off for a while, watching as the man continued to work on his project. The yarn and tacks formed multiple circles on the map, one very large and then a dozen or so smaller ones. The largest circle surrounded the greater part of the city's shipyard district. The smaller ones contained business districts, residential neighborhoods, and industrial areas. Even the smallest of the circles encompassed many, many city blocks.

She thought that she already knew what she was looking at, but felt she had to ask, to be sure. "What are you working on?"

Because of the headphones, the man didn't hear her. She waited a couple more seconds, and then knocked on the hard surface of the card table. "Hey! What are you doing?" A little louder this time.

The man turned from the map and saw them standing there. He pulled the headphones off of his ears and let them rest wrapped around his neck. "Pardon?" he said.

"What is that?" asked Dizzy, pointing at the map.

"Oh, just my way of trying to keep busy. I'm listening to emergency bands on this radio, and mapping out where the damage is. Every time I hear a report from a location, I stick in a tack. Somethin' to do, you know?"

"So, inside the circles, there are buildings knocked down and stuff?"

He looked at her, then at Rico, then back to her. "Honey," he said. "I don't know how to break it to you, but these were meteor strikes. High speed, lots of energy. Everything in those circles is gone. Pulverized. Big hole in the ground."

The old man watched her reaction, and she could see by the look on his face that he wasn't meaning to be cruel. There was just no way to pull that punch.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Are you folks from here in the city?"

Dizzy didn't respond. Her gaze shifted back to the map. She started trying to locate a family member that didn't live in one of the smaller circles. Tried to locate some place that they might have been when the attack came that wasn't in one of the circles. Her mother would have been at home, or she might have been at the corner grocery. Her father would have been at work. Her grandparents would have been at home. Or maybe at the Elks lodge or at the local diner. Her brothers would have been at school, or at home, or working at a factory. Her brother Eddy might still be out there, somewhere, and crazy Uncle Roberto, the black sheep of the family, he lived far to the south, so he might have been spared. Everyone else was gone. There had been no warning, no chance for evacuation.

Dizzy turned to Rico and said, "They're all gone, aren't they, Johnny?"

He nodded, never taking his eyes from the map. The color was gone from his face. He had a death grip on the IV stand and it looked like that was the only thing holding him up.

She turned back to look at the map. I should be crying, she thought. Dizzy had known already. From the moment they'd first heard of the attack, she known that they had all been taken from her. But she hadn't allowed herself to accept it then, telling herself that it wasn't time to grieve yet, because there was no way to be sure. Maybe that's why I'm not crying now. Still no way to be sure. I haven't seen the bodies. I'm never going to see the bodies. High speed, lots of energy. They were dust now. Ashes and dust.

Her one consolation was that it had been quick, and painless. She often had nightmares about the Bugs killing her family, and in many ways, those nightmares had been the motivation that had kept her going through the last couple of years. But in her nightmares it was a wave of Warrior Bug's washing over her home, tearing through the walls to get at the people within. Her family had been spared that kind of horrific death. Her fears of losing the ones she loved had been realized, but at least they had not suffered.

Then, a terrible thought occurred to her, made all the more awful by the ring of absolute truth to it. The Bugs were going to win. We've been fooling ourselves. Up until now, she'd believed that if everyone did their part, they could win this. Kill enough Bugs and in the end, humanity would come out on top. But the Bugs had the numbers and sheer relentlessness on their side. They weren't like us. They weren't dreaming of some peaceful day in a far off future. They lived in the moment and only dreamed to fill every moment with a human death. They would spread throughout the galaxy and they would consume every living thing until everything was Bug.

Sabertooth Tigers. Terrorbirds. They had their day in the sun, and never thought it would end. Then something better came along, and where were they now? Nothing lasts forever, and humanity was no exception. Someone was always going to have to be the last of us. We're just the ones who picked the short straw.

As a species, we'd had a pretty good run. We tamed fire, built some pyramids, and traveled to the stars. Along the way we'd painted some pretty good pictures and written some really catchy songs. She'd even heard that some had experienced loving someone and being loved back. That would've been a kick.

A numbness settled in, a potent mix of shock and exhaustion and she kept losing track of where she was and what was happening. Later, they were sitting back in their chairs and she didn't remember walking back there. There was a tray of food in her lap, but no memory of where it had come from. Then the food was gone, but she couldn't swear that she had eaten it. Higgins brought them clothes. One piece Terrorbird football uniforms, red with a black feather pattern all over and wide yellow stripes down the side. Tennis shoes. She took the clothes without complaint. Someone knocked on the shower stall door and asked if she was alright. She was being lead into an empty classroom. There were wrestling mats on the floor and Rico was curled up on one, wrapped in a mylar blanket. She lay down next to him and closed her eyes.

Had the last sabertooth known he was the last? Had he fought that much harder because of it?

She had no idea how long she had been out when she awoke thinking of a tree and the initials carved on it. It was a memory from her early teenage years. It was the only place from her childhood that she could remember that was not now gone from the earth.

The tree grew next to a creek at a camping site far outside the city. That summer her parents had packed her up along with her army of brothers and taken them to a campground for two weeks of vacation. She'd been kissed there for the first time, by a boy her age whose family was staying at the same campground. She'd liked the kiss, but then the boy had talked and he'd had so many stupid things to say, and it had kind of ruined it for her. Bored by the boy, she'd ditched him and gone to sit alone by the creek and wonder what her best friend Johnny was doing at that exact moment. He was far away, on a vacation with his own family in Australia.

She wish that the boy could have been more like Johnny. She could talk to Johnny all day every day and never grow tired of it.

That was when she'd started to wonder what it would be like to kiss Johnny. At first, the thought had seemed weird. She had never thought of Johnny that way. He was her friend, the kid she played sports with, rode bikes with, stayed up all night playing video games with. But the more she thought about it, the less weird the idea became. Having thought about it, there was something very right about the notion. She thought that she would like very much to kiss her best friend. Some kind of secret, solemn vow had been made there, and she'd sealed it by engraving her initials and those of her best friend into the wood of the tree and then enclosing them with a crude heart shape.

The image of the tree was still lingering in her mind, when she quietly said his name.

He must not have been asleep, because he answered almost right away. "Yeah, Diz?"

"Remember that summer that your parents took you to Sydney and my parents took me camping?"

After a few moments he said, "Yeah. Why?"

She struggled to frame her question. "What happened to you there?"

"What do you mean? It was a vacation. Hung out at the beach most of the time, I think."

"No, I mean. . .When you came back, you were different. When you left, we were best friends, but when you came back, it seemed like you didn't want to have anything to do with me."

She waited for his answer, and when he didn't, she said, "You probably don't even know what I'm talking about."

"No, I remember. But, you were the one who changed, Diz."

"What? How?"

"When I left, you were my best buddy, just one of the boys. I came back and you'd started wearing a bra. Everything was different. You were always giving me these weird looks, like you were expecting something from me, and I had no idea what it was. Everything you said seemed to have some double meaning and I always felt like I was missing the punchline. Everything I said seemed to be taken the wrong way and you would get all hurt by it. I felt like I was walking on eggshells around you."

"I was a teenage girl, all hopped up on hormones. We're like walking open wounds at that age."

"Yeah, well, I got tired of feeling like an idiot, that's why I stopped hanging out with you."

"I was the idiot."said Dizzy. "I acted that way because I liked you, and I wanted you to like me."

"I already liked you. You were my best friend, remember?"

"No, I LIKED you and I wanted you to LIKE me."

"Like I said Diz, you were just one of the boys. Thinking about you that way would have taken a sudden one hundred and eighty degree mental turn, and I don't know if you've noticed, but my head's got kind of a wide turn radius."

She snorted at that and he gave a little laugh, too. They lay in silence for a while, and she thought that they might be getting closer to dawn. What she could see of the sky out the windows seemed to be changing from a dark overcast glum, to a slightly less dark overcast glum.

"Rico?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think I'm pretty?"

"Yeah."

"Since when?"

"I dunno."

She thought that there was a chance that her youthful infatuation had made her see him as a better conversationalist than he really was. Dizzy turned over to her other side to face him. He was laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. She watched the light from the window slowly get brighter on his face. She thought of millions of dead and what they would have done if they had known that yesterday would be their last day She thought of the ones she loved and things not said.

It was now or never, she decided. Can't count on a tomorrow. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees and then moved to straddle him. It took him by surprise.

"Diz, what. . ."

She cut him off with a kiss. Soft and sweet.

He made one more attempt at protest and then she told him, "Shut up, Johnny."

She kissed him again, this time more deeply, and then he reached up and his arms were wrapping around her, pulling her down onto him and he was kissing her back.

* * *

RAZAK -

Razak had been prepared for hours more on an already long day, but he had been pleasantly surprised to find that everything he could think of to do to strengthen the defenses of the school had already been done by the Principal or was now being done by Gossard. The Principal, it turned out, had been a sergeant in the Mobile Infantry, and he must have been a good one. Shubert had the answer to any question Razak had asked. Sometimes he'd needed a few seconds of flipping through the notes on his clipboard, but most of the time he'd plucked the answer right off the top of his head. He had a running census of any citizens that they had on site and what kind of weapon each citizen was carrying and how much ammo they had arrived with. If the information was needed, Shubert knew what special skills they had learned while they were in the service. The contents of a police SWAT van outside had been inventoried as they were brought inside, and he had a page on his clipboard that detailed it's contents. Should they find that they had to evacuate by vehicle, he knew who in the school knew how to drive. He knew who had eaten, who had slept, what classrooms were in use and which were empty. He was so good that Razak began to suspect that maybe SICON had secretly developed a new type of CHAS unit and were testing it out in schools. Only this time, CHAS stood for Cybernetic Humanoid Administrative System. A CHAS probably wouldn't have needed a clipboard, though.

When Razak had run out of suggestions that Shubert hadn't already thought of, they stood there for a few minutes waiting to see if something else would occur to him. Finally, the Principal asked, "When was the last time you got any sleep?"

Razak tried to remember, and thought he might have dozed off at one point back in Oregon but couldn't swear to it. "I think it might have been during the last Sky Marshall administration." he told Shubert.

"Well, things are quiet at the moment. Maybe you should go try to catch forty winks, and I'll wake you if we need you."

Razak could see the sense in that. He felt dead on his feet. "Maybe for just an hour."

"An hour." repeated Shubert. "Then I'll come roust you."

The Principal had put him in the Vice Principal's office and flipped off the lights on his way out. Razak had flopped out on the floor, with the VP's suit jacket for a pillow. He'd fallen asleep almost right away, but had jarred back awake almost immediately. It was always this way when he let himself get this exhausted. He would start to drop off, and then he would swear he heard someone shout his name. Sometimes the voice sounded like his mother, other times like his drill sergeant back in basic. Either way, every time he'd sit bolt upright, heart pounding, and then realize he had only imagined hearing it. The second time he'd crashed out for good and had been dead to the world until he heard the Principal's knock upon the door.

He squinted at the clock on the wall and said, "That time already?"

"That time, Lieutenant." Shubert agreed. "There's a woman out here who wants to speak to you. She says she knows you."

That made him a little curious. "Send her in." he said as he got himself up off of the floor. Shubert held the door open for her, and then excused himself.

Razak recognized the black woman that walked through the door as soon as he saw her. She was in her late thirties, dressed in blue jeans, a faded Washout Wally t-shirt and a grey hooded sweatshirt. Her hair was dyed a deep, dark blue color and was done up in tight cornrows that came together into a ponytail of braids at the back of her head.

Razak smiled when he saw her and said, "Topper!"

Topper's real name was Andrea Lincoln, and she had been the dropship and retrieval ship pilot on many of Razak's earliest drops as a lieutenant. Her nickname was short for "Treetopper" because of how low she would fly on a mission when she was trying to stay below radar. She'd been known to clear her path of a particularly tall tree with her ship's minigun rather than gain altitude and risk being pinged.

He stuck his hand out to shake hers, and she reached to accept, then hesitated, looking down to see which hand he was offering. "Sorry." she said. "Just making sure you weren't trying to grab me with the mangler."

He held up his left hand, wiggled the mechanical fingers. "This isn't the same one that you remember. This one's got some subtlety to it. I can pick up kittens and everything."

"Jean Razak petting kittens." she said with a smirk. "Please tell me there are pictures."

He extended the other hand, and she grabbed it, but then pulled him into a tight hug. "How you been, Jean? You telling me SICON hasn't found a way to get you killed?"

"Not for lack of trying, I assure you." Razak replied. "I'm holding together alright, I guess. How about you, Lieutenant?"

She released him and stepped back, looking at him quizzically. "I'm not fleet anymore. Hadn't you heard?"

"What's this bunk? You finally see sense and go to work for the private companies?"

"I got myself booted."

It was his turn to give her the funny look. "How would you have gone about doing that?"

"How well do you keep up with the news?"

"I ignore it for the most part. I've been on the ground too often when it was being made, and saw how backwards the journalists got everything later. Call me crazy, but I guess I'd rather be uninformed than misinformed."

"Same old Jean." she said. "Well, you did hear about the Dantana evacuation, right?" Andrea paused for a second to steal a glance out the door to the left and the right before closing it behind her and taking a seat in one of the chairs placed against the wall. Razak leaned back against the desk and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Dantana. Hmmm. If memory serves, it was one of the few pieces of rock that we decided it wasn't worth fighting the Bugs for."

"That's the one." she said. "There was a big settlement there named Fort Joe Smith made up of about fifty thousand people. SICON decided they didn't want to hold it, so they sent Fleet transports to load everyone up and hightail it out of there. Mine was the last ship on the ground, and the MI general who running the whole operation was on board my ship. He began to get antsy when the Bugs started getting close to the fort. He ordered me to take off, even though we still had a few thousand people that were coming in from the outer settlements. I couldn't leave them behind, so I refused. He threatened to shoot me, and let the co-pilot fly the transport out."

"This co-pilot. Was it Lucy?"

"It was." said Andrea. He thought he saw her wince a little at the mention of the name.

"Then him threatening to shoot you must have gone over like a wet fart. How is she doing?"

Andrea didn't say anything for a few seconds, just looked down to study the carpet. Then she looked up and met his eyes. "Lucy . . ." she had to stop, then take another run at it. "Lucy died."

"Oh." was the only thing Razak could think to say at first. "I am so sorry, Andrea. When?"

"Late last year. Our supply convoy got hit by plasma fire on the way into Klendathu and her ship burned up."

The stood for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. Jean remember Lucy McHale as a short, freckled redhead with a crew cut and a sense of humor that inevitably strayed to the bawdy. "She was one of a kind." he said, fondly.

"That she was." agreed Andrea.

"So, Lucy didn't shoot the general, did she?"

"No, but only because I wouldn't let her. We just tossed him out of the cabin and barred the door. We sat there and waited for the rest of the evacuees and the entire time he was yelling at us through the door, making all kinds of threats. He even had someone bring up a cutting torch and try to cut their way through. Once we had everyone on board, we took off, and I'll admit, it was a squirrely dust-off. But we all made it out in one piece."

Razak could only see one way it could have gone from there. "How come you didn't get the firing squad?"

"Because the general had a very big mouth and it didn't take long before everyone on board the transport knew what was going on. If they'd tried to put me on trial, there would have been a huge uproar. On the other hand, we'd manhandled a general and refused direct orders. About all they could do with me is cut a deal. If Lucy and I left quietly, we could keep our pilots licenses but we would not get our citizenship. If we ever made a stink, they would put us on trial and see us shot. We took the deal."

"So, now you're raking in the dough in the private sector?"

"Not exactly. Any reputable company wouldn't have us. Our military records are sealed, so any potential employed can only see that my discharge was not honorable. I can't explain myself, or I'll risk having to face trial. We ended up taking whatever work we could get. I've been piloting for a merchant marine vessel until I can find something better."

"Well, it sounds like you've had a rough patch going for a while now."

"True, but believe it or not, Jean, I'm not actually here just to belly ache."

"Oh? What's on your mind?"

"We got a ship."

"Really? Where?"

"Here in Buenos Aires. At the shipyards."

Razak looked confused. "Are you sure that you're keeping up with the news? The shipyards are gone, Topper."

"Most of them are, yes. But as far as we can tell, where we got our Sweet Madeleine parked is outside the crater. The shipyards have an auxiliary landing pad further to the south. It used to be a warehouse property, but they tore it all down and paved it. If repairs are getting backed up at the main yards, they put the overflow out 's where she is."

"Okay, what kind of ship are we talking about? This something that runs? Why is it at the 'yards?"

"Maddy is a transport. " said Andrea. "She's a Maden-Reber heavy class, about as big as they get and still be able to land in an atmosphere. Built for the military fifty years ago and then decommissioned about twenty five years ago. She's ancient, and she's ugly, and the way she handles, it's like she takes steering as merely a suggestion to consider, but she was built to last and her hull's solid. As far as what's wrong with her, about eight months ago, her Cherenkov drive crapped out on us. We were on the way back to earth at the time and had dropped out of slipspace out by Pluto to offload some supplies. Fizzle, pop, and then we ain't going anywhere fast. Had the drive worked, we would have been home in three hours. Instead, we spent the next six months limping her home the old fashion way. We got her home and she's been parked for the last two months at a pad at the south end of the city, waiting her turn for repairs."

"And you think it's still there and can fly?"

"I've looked at the maps and she looks like she's in the clear. As long as the Bugs haven't found her, she'll fly. I can't take you to the other side of the solar system any time soon, but I can get you out of town."

"Is this ship big enough to evacuate four or five thousand people?"

"We've hauled three thousand head of cattle before. Maddy's holds are all empty, so there should be more than enough room for that many people. My main worry is having enough room to land her. I've been looking at the sports fields outside, and between the football field, the soccer field and the baseball diamond, I think there will be enough room to bring her down. We're going to cause some destruction but she should fit.

"You have enough crew to fly her?" This was all sounding a little too good to be true, and Razak was trying not to let himself get too excited. He knew there must still be a big "But" coming and was trying to find out what the weevil in this biscuit was going to be.

"Sure do. We've all been stuck here doing nothing, waiting on Maddy to get her repairs. My boss has spent the last two months losing money and losing his mind, shelling out on food and lodging for an eight man starship crew. You've met him, by the way."

"When was this?"

"Remember the mouthy twerp in the hallway with the sling and the bloody head bandage?"

"Ah, yes. He's a charmer." Then he connected a few dots and had an ah-ha moment. "Were you there, too? I was wondering how you knew I was around."

"Yeah, I figured you hadn't seen me. I was two feet from you but apparently you had something else on your mind. If I'd have been a Bug I would have bit you."

"Says the woman who had actually been standing next to a Bug."

"He didn't look like no Bug." she said, her expression turning playfully sheepish.

"You didn't think he was acting a little strange, commenting on how nice the afternoon weather was in the middle of the night?"

"We were standing in line for medical attention. I thought he was in shock or something."

Razak let it drop with a bemused smirk and a shake of his head. "Your boss doesn't seem too keen on the MI."

"He sure doesn't." she said with a nod of agreement. "He's always had a chip on his shoulder about the service. I don't know, he may have washed out at some point or something. But right now, I think part of his frustration with everyone in a uniform is because of the runaround he's been getting with Maddy's repairs. Don't get me wrong, he is a Class A jerk, but what we've been putting up with would try anyone's patience. The military gets priority on all repair facilities, even the private ones, so we just kept getting bumped back over and over again."

"Does he know you're talking to me about this?"

"I told him I was going to, but he's not exactly sold on the idea. It's not like he's got a lot of choice, though. If he leaves the ship there, the Bugs will find it. It's not like we can go get it ourselves. We're merchant marines, so, by law, all our guns had to stay on the ship. If we were to try to go get her, we'd be crossing a lot of Bug territory unarmed."

"All right, so why is he dragging his feet?"

Andrea rolled her eyes and shook her head. "He claims that he's afraid you'll seize the ship."

"If we did the government has to pay him the current value, which I believe has increased exponentially since yesterday. He'd be filthy rich."

"Yeah, well, I think what he's really worried about is something else. He doesn't know that I know, and he sure wouldn't want you to know, but I've heard from some of the guys on the crew that he sometimes skims a little off of the military shipments. He's got stolen military gear stowed away in some hidden compartment somewhere on the ship."

"Shady guy, your boss. What's he doing with it all?"

"Black market, I think. He gets caught, he gets shot."

"And hence, all his hand wringing." Razak scratched his chin and looked through the window at the rainy gloom outside. He turned back with a sigh and a look on his face like he'd just taken a bite of something nasty. "I'm willing to pretend that I don't know what I know, if it means I can get all these people out of here. If we get you guys out there, is he going to give us trouble about coming back to pick up all these passengers?"

"Wouldn't matter if he did." said Andrea. "He and I are the only ones who can fly her, and there's no way he could handle her with that broken arm. Maddy's going where I say she's going."

"I'd just hate to find myself dealing with him if he decides to do something stupid. Once he's on the ship, he'll be armed, and that makes me very nervous. Any chance we could go get it without him?"

"Sorry, but I'm afraid not. Maddy won't fire up without his thumbprint and voicescan. Our boy's got what you'd call a touch of the paranoia."

"It was worth a shot." he said. "Look, I feel bad for even asking, but there is one thing I need to know. If things came to push and shove with him, can I expect you to be pushing on our side?"

She laughed at him. "What? You think I've been running with scoundrels and maybe it's rubbed off on me?"

"That's not what I mean, and like I said, I'm sorry for even asking. But, I understand that working on this ship is your livelihood, and the way SICON has treated you wouldn't exactly inspire feelings of loyalty in anybody. I could see how you might feel conflicted."

"Jean, no matter how SICON has treated me, I'm still the same woman I've always been and you can count on me to do what I've always done. Which is the right thing as far as I can see it. If you're on the side doing the right thing, then you know which side I'll be standing on."

"Good enough for me." he said. "What say you introduce me to this boss of yours?"

Within a minute of meeting Andrea's boss, Razak knew that working with the man was going to be the hardest part of the mission. It was going to require the patience and calm of a zen master and the congeniality of a wartime diplomat. For the most part, he had decided to let Andrea take the lead in the negotiations. She had spent six months stuck on a ship with the man and had somehow managed to resist the urge to eject him out an airlock. Clearly, she had developed some strategies for dealing with him.

They met in an empty History classroom, with just the three of them being present. "Tom, this is Jean Razak." said Andrea. "Jean, this is Tom Dahl, the owner and captain of the Sweet Madeleine ."

Tom wasn't a big guy, about five six and maybe a hundred and twenty-five pounds. He was dressed in denim and flannel, with a stained canvas jacket draped over his shoulders. There was a nervous energy to him; he constantly fidgeted and seemed to have a hard time just standing still. His appearance was scruffy, with a few weeks of beard growth and a head full of black hair that hadn't seen scissors in over a year at least. However, someone had used clippers to shave out a strip of hair across the left side of the top of his head, to make it easier to stitch his head wound. It was a nasty looking cut, about five inches long. His right forearm had been put in a temporary cast and was held close to his body by a sling. The fingers sticking out the end of the cast were nicotine stained.

Razak felt he should offer to shake hands, but wasn't sure that was such a good idea. With Tom's right hand in a cast, he would have to offer his left hand, the mechanical one, and he thought that might do more harm than good. He decided to forego the handshake, instead, putting on a smile and saying, "A pleasure to meet you, Mr Dahl."

Dahl grunted in response, then stared at him.

The fixed smile on Razak's face quickly began to hurt, and he doubted it was looking that authentic anyway. Dropping it, he said, "Well, I wanted to start by saying that I'm sorry if I startled you earlier when I went after that Imposter Clone Bug. That was not my intention."

"Right." said Tom.

Razak looked over at Andrea for any kind of direction. She looked back at him and then said, "Tom, I talked with Jean about the situation with Maddy."

"Yeah." said Tom. "I hear you want to hire my ship."

Razak focused on keeping his face neutral and crossed off the first nine responses that occurred to him.

"Tom," said Andrea. "we talked about this. Don't even try it."

"Try what, Lincoln? I still don't understand the issue. The Federation needs my services and the services of my ship. Shouldn't I be compensated for them?"

Razak was impressed by the level calm of Andrea's tone when she said, "Under normal circumstances, yes, but right now your ship is parked deep in Bug territory."

"Oh, she's got a strong hull." he said with a shrug. "She'll probably be just fine until I can get to her."

Andrea started to say something in response, but was cut off when Razak snorted, then started coughing as he choked off a laugh. The fit lasted a few seconds and then he cleared his throat before saying, "Mr Dahl, you are either trying to bluff, or you have never seen what a Bug's pincers can do to solid steel. What Bug Plasma can do. Or Blister Bug acid. Or Tanker Bug fire."

Tom Dahl glared at him and Razak regretted allowing himself even the hint of laughter. This was a man who could not abide the thought of being laughed at.

Razak ignored Dahl's hostile looks and pressed on. "Fact is, I'm only considering all this because I figure there's a coin toss chance that the Bug's haven't got to your ship already. At this point in time, I'm willing to take those odds."

Dahl chewed on the corner of his lip as he considered, then dismissed him with a swish of his good hand. "Why am I even talking to a lowly lieutenant, anyway? Get someone on the horn that matters and I'll negotiate with them."

"We do not have time for this. You understand that eventually, Bugs are going to be coming here, and they are going to come by the thousands. We do not have the weapons to hold off that many Bugs."

"Sounds like you better hurry, then, lieutenant. Send me up the chain of command until I find someone that can see sense." As Tom spoke, Razak looked down and saw that one of the man's knees was shaking. Apparently, he wasn't as confident as he was trying to pretend to be. But clearly, things like reason, common sense, or just basic self preservation were not going to be of any use in trying to appeal to Tom Dahl. Razak would have to switch gears.

"We can go that route, if you insist." Razak told him, looking up to meet Dahl's eyes. "But, they're going to want my opinion on the situation, and I'm going to recommend that they give Maddy a thorough, every nook and cranny type inspection before they sign any contracts. You think the Sweet Madeleine can pass those kinds of inspections right now?"

Razak put on his poker face, crossed his arms over his chest and held Dahl's gaze while the captain had himself an internal debate. Dahl had no poker face; every thought going through that head was being written out in little twitches on his face. It was Dahl who broke eye contact first, flicking his eyes over to Andrea, as if he was expecting some kind of support from that direction. She had nothing to add. Razak looked down, and noticed that his boots had mud on them. He nonchalantly scraped one against the other, knocking some loose. Still watching the ship captain peripherally, he could see that Tom was just about on the verge of a seizure. The look on his face gave the impression that he was trying to swallow a hot baked potato, whole.

He's trying to figure out how much I know and how I would know it, mused Razak.

Tom's voice had a little quiver to it when he said, "There are private companies. I'll -"

Razak let the laugh out this time. "What private company is going to come into Buenos Aires right now? The Mobile Infantry has hundreds of troops at the north end of the city, and they aren't even coming in yet. You going to hire some mercenaries to help you go out there and get it? How long is that going to take? What do you think it will cost?"

"Look, you don't have to -" Tom attempted to get a word in edgewise, but Razak spoke over him, raising his voice.

"Face it, Mr Dahl, you are talking to the only person with the means and the motivation to go right now and get you your ship back. And all it's going to cost you is an act of human decency. Come back here, pick up the people in this school, and get them out of town. Now, can we please stop messing around and pretending that you actually have some kind of choice here?"

The two men stared at each other, unblinking. Razak could see that Tom was on the ropes, but knew the man was not going to go down without a few more swings.

Sure enough, after much huffing and puffing and chin scratching, Dahl said, "I want a promissory note, signed by you that after this is all said and done, I'll be paid the going rate for -"

"No."

Dahl let out a frustrated whimper. "I want a signed document stating if any damage is caused to my ship during the course -"

"Not going to happen."

Frankly, Razak found himself a little surprised that Tom wasn't falling on the floor, kicking and screaming. Apparently the man was capable of a little more restraint than the lieutenant would have given him credit for.

With a sigh of resignation, Tom said, "Once we are on my ship, I am the Captain of a Merchant Marine vessel and I want you and your crew to treat me as such. I don't want you ordering my crew around, or talking down to me in front of them. I'd like a little respect."

"Fair enough." said Razak. "I'll go get my people."

A few minutes later, Razak was with Gossard, surveying what he had managed to accomplish since they had arrived at the school hours before. They were standing in what was once the chemistry classroom but now had become a weapons factory. The tables had been set up as workstations and the people clustered around them were building the components of several kinds of explosives. Some of them were mixing liquids in beakers, while others were grinding powders with a mortar and pestle. Glass bottles were being filled and capped with lids fitted with fuses. A woman at one table was filling baking pans with some kind of clear gel then pounding them on the table, presumably to shake out bubbles. A group of high school age kids at another table had shallow baking pans filled with what looked like some kind of greenish clay. They were wearing heavy rubber gloves and carefully pressing heavy nuts and bolts into the soft surface of the clay. A fuse protruded from a hole drilled onto the side of the pan.

"I know you're talented, Gossard, but i got to admit, this has far exceeded my expectations."

"I'd like to take the credit, sir, but my chemistry knowledge is way too basic for any of this. All the credit really goes to Mr Fohler over there."

He pointed out a dark haired bearded man sporting a lab coat who was over in the far corner of the room. He was standing with his hands clasped behind him, overseeing the work with a watchful eye.

"He's Freemonte's chemistry teacher." explained Goss. "I was mixing up molotov cocktails and came up here to see if he had any beakers I could borrow. I asked him if he had any ideas for explosives we could make and I swear, it's like he'd been waiting his entire life for someone to come along and ask him that question." Gossard turned so he was facing away from Mr. Fohler, and then leaned in to whisper to Razak, "He's kind of scary."

"Oh, yeah? How so?"

"He has spent way too much time thinking about how to make explosives. He's got notebooks, note the plural, notebooks full of formulas."

"Makes sense." said Razak. "I've always suspected that every chemistry teacher I've ever known was a secret pyromaniac. They're all just a little too eager to blow things up." He leaned over, snuck a peek at the teacher. "He does kind have crazy eyes, doesn't he?"

"I know! Right?!" whispered Goss. "He doesn't blink. I mean, ever."

"Playing devil's advocate, I would point out that there are times when we kind of have the same worries about you, Corporal. Perhaps we should give him the benefit of the doubt for now."

"I see your point." said Goss. "But, hey, at least I blink on a regular basis."

"You think all this stuff is going to work?"

"From what I can make of it, the chemistry is sound. He says he's only using his simplest, most stable formulas, since these folks doing all the mixing aren't chemists. Oh, and by the way, he also says that if we feel we need it, he could mix up something that would take out half the school. I'll let you make of that what you will."

"Okay, I'll grant you, that's a little disconcerting." said Razak. "Let's just assume that he describing some kind of 'the Bugs have taken the school and we're taking them with us' kind of scenario. How would they even have the supplies for something like that on hand?"

"I asked him the same question. He said that they are putting in a new olympic size pool this summer and they have a half dozen barrels each of plastisteel resin and hardener. According to him, he could use the resin and other materials we have on site to whip up a high explosive."

"Oh, my god. Okay, you've convinced me. He's a little bit scary. I guess we should just be thankful he's on our side. How about you? How are you holding up? With all this work, have you managed to get any sleep?"

"I got about a forty five minute nap while we were waiting for that gel stuff to cook to the right consistency. I think I would have been better off without it, though. Woke up more tired than when I went to sleep."

"I hear you. You got any idea where everyone else is?"

"Last time I saw Doc, he was looking for a place to crash out for a little while. Rico and Diz are still snoozing in a classroom up the hall. I saw T'Phai out on the wall when we were delivering some of our goodies. He hadn't slept, but I don't think it's even that time of the week for him, yet. Higgins is curled up in the bottom of Mr Fohler's coat closet over there sawing logs."

Razak tried to make sense of that last part, but had to ask. "Why is Higgins in the coat closet?"

"He tried to crash out in the same classroom with Dizzy and Rico, but he said the door was locked. He came back here, looked for the first out of the way, dark place he could find and crawled into it. I think the little tike had wore himself out and he really needed a nap."

"Well, give him a shake, and then meet me in the room where Rico and Diz are sleeping in five. We've got work to do."

After leaving the Chemistry Lab, Razak asked around until he located Doc, and sent him to join the others while he went outside to find T'Phai. There he discovered that T'Phai's shooting skills had earned him quite a fan club amongst those guarding the wall and they were not happy to see him go. There were groans of disappointment and complaints about the unfairness of it all when Razak came to collect the Tophetti.

"You bringing him back?" one of the men yelled down to Razak from the roof of a bus.

"Sorry, folks, but I don't think so."

A chorus of expletives rose up. One of the men came up and was going to bump fists with T'Phai, but then he saw the sharp claw sticking out from the back of the alien's hand, and thought better of it. Instead, he grabbed T'Phai up in a bear hug to say goodbye. Knowing T'Phai as he did, Razak knew this kind of display of affection probably made the alien feel uncomfortable, but he accepted it graciously, and even patted the man awkwardly on the shoulders.

As they walked back towards the doors, Razak said, "I take it you guys saw some action this morning?"

"The Bugs came a few times, and they are coming in greater numbers. The fighting was . . ." he searched for the right word. "intense. They were calling me the Terror of Tophet. Do you think that is good or bad?"

"I would say in this case it's good. It means they liked you."

"I thought so," said T'Phai. "but could not be sure. There was once a great warlord on Tophet that was given a similar name, but he is not remembered affectionately."

The others were waiting when they got back inside. Gossard was keeping everyone entertained by ranking Rico, Flores, and Higgins' bedhead, and since they had both gone to sleep with wet hair, Rico and Dizzy were currently in a dead heat. Ultimately, he decided that the asymmetry of Dizzy's do plus how high it stood straight up put her over the top and awarded her the prize.

Higgins was tapping at the top of his own head with a flattened palm, trying to determine how high his hair stood while comparing it to Dizzy's when he noticed something and leaned in for a closer look. "Are those hickeys?" he asked.

Simultaneously, Rico and Flores put their hands to their necks and said, "What? "Where?"

Goss looked closer and said, "Yeah, I think so. Oh, man, you got them everywhere."

Razak noticed that Rico and Dizzy's eyes were firing daggers at each other for some reason.

"Look." said Doc. "They're on your hands, too."

The two troopers looked down and saw what everyone was talking about. All across their skin were tiny circular bruises that Razak had to agree, did look a lot like hickeys. Each bruise was about half in diameter and they were evenly spaced.

"You've both had all your immunizations, right?" Doc held Rico's hand up so he could get a better look at it in the meager light coming through the window.

"I've been to Klendathu and back," Rico replied. "I sure hope I've had all my shots."

"It's probably from the Spook Suits." Goss offered. "You know, all those little mouth things on the inside?"

Everyone else said, "Oooooooooh. Of course." Face-palms all around.

"Spook Suits. They are the gift that just keeps on giving." said Dizzy.

"Speaking of the creepy pajamas," said Rico. "whatever happened to those?"

"I tossed them into the furnace down in the school's boiler room." Higgins told them.

Dizzy let out a disappointed little moan and everyone looked at her, a little baffled by her reaction.

"I thought you hated those things." Higgins said.

"Oh, I do. Don't get me wrong. I just kind of wanted to watch them burn. Hey, don't give me that look, paperboy. I spent several hours getting touched inappropriately by that thing. I think getting to see it burn is the least I was owed."

"Well, if I know Higgins, he probably filmed it, so you may still get the chance." Razak told her. "In the meantime, I'd like to talk about why I had us gather here."

Razak informed them of the plan to go out and get the Sweet Madeleine. The plan was met with unanimous approval. While they hadn't been vocal about it, none of them had been feeling particularly confident that the school's defenses were going to be able to hold when the Bugs started coming in greater numbers. Risky as the mission was undoubtedly going to be, they very much preferred actually being able to do something that might improve the situation, rather than just sitting and waiting for the Bugs to come.

"We're going to be taking the eight member crew of the Madeleine out with us, and their Captain is a sensitive, fragile little thing. We need him and I need you to handle him with kid gloves. We can't be making any jokes or wisecracks that he might take the wrong way." Razak paused for a second and let his gaze slide over to Gossard, meaningfully. Goss nodded and Razak continued. "These are merchant marines, so keep in mind, once they are on their vessel they are legally allowed to carry any weapons they might need to defend their ship. I have reason to believe that they may even has some very high end military hardware on board. We obviously want to avoid any kind of confrontation with them. Understood?"

They acknowledged him with a. "Yes, sir."

Something about being back in a classroom with Razak made Rico raise his hand before he spoke. "Is there a reason why you think there might be a confrontation, sir?"

"My interactions with the Captain so far have lead me to believe that he has a serious deficiency of common sense, and he strikes me as someone who, in the right circumstances, might be capable of pulling epic acts of stupidity. Him being the way he is, I can't see his crew being fiercely loyal to him, but you never know. Let's just be careful."

"Mr Shubert has informed me that the contents of a SWAT van have been stored here in the school. I want you to use it to gear up. Restock on anything you think you might need. Rico. Flores." He looked at them, dressed in their Terrorbird football uniforms. "There should be some armor in there. Do your best with it. Everyone meet me at the front doors of the school in thirty minutes. I'm going to go try to talk Mr Shubert into loaning us a section of his wall."

When next he saw them, Rico and Flores looked a little more like troopers. Each wore a tactical helmet, a bulletproof vest, pads on their elbows and knees, and shin guards over combat boots. Over the bulletproof vest was a set of suspenders that supported the weight of a backpack and a pouch laden utility belt strapped around their waists. The rest of their gear included a pair of amber colored shooter's glasses, a respirator/com unit, and for weapons, they were both armed with a Richen-Huang UAR-15 carbine and a combat knife in a thigh sheath. The glaringly bright colors of their football uniforms still showed through in places, but the SWAT gear did cover up quite a bit of it, which they might find handy later, should the troopers not want to be spotted by Bugs.

The rest of the squad made their appearance over the next few minutes and they joined Razak on the steps of the school to watch as the vehicles that made up the wall were being rearranged. Once Mr Shubert had been told about the proposed mission, he hadn't hesitated before agreeing to let the Roughnecks use the police armored personnel carrier that formed a section of the wall four spots in from the opening. There was another vehicle available only a few blocks away to fill in the spot, once it was vacant. They had passed on it earlier, because it was a garbage truck and it was still full of several tons of rotting garbage. It seemed like a fair trade. Put up with a few hours of stench in return for the chance of an escape from the city.

Andrea and Tom arrived a short while later, along with the rest of the Madeleine's crew. They were all far more clean cut than he would have expected for a civilian starship crew, but then again, they had been shacking up in hotels for the last two months, not out on an extended voyage. Only Tom seemed to have maintained his poor grooming habits while dockside.

Introductions were made all around, the squad and the crew exchanging handshakes and names. Razak's impression of them was that they were all far more level headed and friendly than their boss.

The Madeleine's crew only numbered six now. Two of the men had opted out of going with them to get the ship and had shrugged it off when they were told that it would cost them their jobs. Razak asked Andrea if that was going to affect their ability to fly the ship and she assured him that it would not. The men who had been dismissed had only worked in the cargo area so their absence would probably go unnoticed. However, those crew members that remained were all essential to the operation of the ship, so they must be kept in one piece if there was to be any hope of success for their mission.

When the APC was in the clear, they all went out through the wall to load up. The APC was the standard type for big city police departments, only about three quarters of the size of the ones the troopers were used to using in the Mobile Infantry. It was painted blue, had eight wheels, a large access door in the back, two portholes on each side and two on top, one forward, one aft. The top ports were each ringed by one and a half foot tall wall of armored plate that would provide cover to anyone using them for machine gun nests. There were fittings for 50 caliber machine guns, but unfortunately no fifty cals to mount on them. On the front of the APC was mounted a heavy steel plow blade, capable of blocking shots fired at the tires from the front and clearing the APC's path as it moved forward. Below the rear access door was a winch system which could be used for anything from towing, getting unstuck, or ripping the doors off of a building. Running boards ran along both sides, along with a series of grip bars, allowing for more men to ride along on the outside of the vehicle if necessary.

The cargo area of the APC was designed to carry a dozen passengers, but the designer hadn't intended for those passengers to be wearing armor quite as bulky as the trooper's power armor. Even with Razak and Andrea up front in the driver's section, that still left ten people in the back, four of which were in powersuits. As the two teams loaded themselves into the APC, things began to get a little too close for comfort very fast. To make a little more room, it was decided that two of the troopers would stand up through the top ports. Since the powersuits would not fit through the ports, the job was left to Rico and Flores, who had to shed their backpacks and utility belts to fit through the holes. It was a little better now, not spacious, but at least everyone could breathe. The open ports would allow rain to drip in, but everyone was fine with the tradeoff.

Once everyone was situated, Razak started the APC and headed southwest. The roads were clear for the most part, and he drove as fast as he felt was safe, which was around fifty miles per hour. They circled far to the west, giving the Transport Bug's impact site a wide berth. It was in their best interest to try to avoid the Bugs as much as possible, as dealing with them would only slow them down.

In spite of taking the long way around, they did encounter some Bugs along the way. These were Warrior Bugs, running in packs of about a dozen or so. They did not engage the enemy, unless you count not slowing down a bit and plowing through them at fifty miles an hour an engagement. As he approached each of these packs, he would shout a warning back to Rico and Flores, giving them a chance to duck down. More often than not, one of the Bugs was thrown up and over the top of the APC, the Bug's shell shattering, it's limbs flailing, and it's insides splattering across the roof of the vehicle.

Bugs on the ground could be avoided, run down, or out run. They weren't very fast and could quickly be left behind. Bugs in the air would have to be dealt with. They could easily keep up with the APC's breakneck speed and would continue to follow them all the way to the Sweet Madeleine, if allowed. When Razak spotted a couple of Rippler Bugs in the rearview mirror, he ordered Rico and Flores to shoot them down.

He saw one of the Bugs fold and topple from the sky, but the roar of the APC's engine and the automatic gunfire attracted a couple more replacements for the downed Rippler. A glance in his side rearview showed that the Bugs were gaining on them.

"T'Phai!" Razak turned his head and shouted back into the cargo hold. "Throw that rear door open and lend a hand, will ya?"

The Tophetti squeezed and negotiated his way through the cramped quarters to the rear of the vehicle. Daylight flooded in as the door was thrown open, and T'Phai dropped to one knee before beginning to squeeze off shots at the Bugs. Because of the bouncing and rocking of the APC, his efforts were not much better than those of Rico and Flores. A rare event, T'Phai even switched his firing rate from single shot to three round burst.

The burned out husk of a city bus blocked the street ahead, so Razak shouted a warning to those in back that he was going hard right and at the next intersection he cranked the wheel. The APC fishtailed and the rear end obliterated a news stand on the corner. Razak straightened it out and accelerated.

The corner had slowed them down, allowing one of the Bugs to catch up. It dove at the front roof porthole, spitting spines at Flores. She ducked down into the cabin, firing her UAR up through the hole. The Rippler tried to follow her down into the cabin, and managed to get it's head and one leg through before the tight passage stopped it's progress. It snapped it's mandibles at the passengers inside and swiped at them with it's claw. Everyone in the passenger compartment began shouting at once and crawling over each other to get away from the Rippler.

Razak hazarded a quick glance back, and didn't like what he saw. Flores had fallen onto her back on the floor as the Rippler followed her in, and she was using her rifle to block the Bug's claw from getting at her. She had her combat knife out and was stabbing at the Bug's face with it.

Razak turned back to watch his driving, but yelled back at those in the rear. "Could someone please do something about the Bug trying to get in our ride?!"

"We're trying!" he heard Gossard shout back. "Can't get a clear sho-."

The sound of full auto fire from the roof of the APC drowned out whatever Goss was trying to say. Bug juice sprayed out over the front of the vehicle, coating the windshield. Rico must be up there just emptying the clip into the back end of the Bug at point blank range. The Bug's claws were making horrible, ear splitting sounds as they scraped across the metal roof. The wipers were already running because of the rain, but he cranked them up to help clear his view. That was when he started hearing multiple people screaming in agony in the back of the APC. It was the kind of sound a man makes when a Bug tears into him. Well, that's it, he thought. We just lost some people. Mission failed. Then Andrea started coughing in the seat next to him and pulling her sweatshirt up over her face.

Bewildered, he whipped his head around to look back and could see that the Rippler was now hanging limply through the porthole. "What is going on back there?"

"I'm sorry, I was just trying to-" he heard Tom Dahl blurt out.

"Captain Dahl just pepper sprayed the Bug." Doc said. "He got a couple of his crew mates, too."

He felt a mixture of relief and bewilderment as he turned back toward the front. Who pepper sprays a Bug? "Do I need to stop?" he called back.

"No, I got it." Doc told him. "Just go."

"It's just that the Bug and no one was and what else should I -" Dahl's mouth was running double time. He received no response to his apologies or excuses.

Flores, Gossard and the two unsprayed merchant marines shoved the now dead Rippler back up through the hole and Razak saw it go tumbling over the side in his mirror. He continued to watch the mirror, but didn't see any more Ripplers tailing them.

"T'Phai!" he called back. "You got eyes on any Bugs?"

When the Tophetti replied in the negative, Razak said, "Well, stay where you are. Keep your eyes peeled."

Since the last turn, they had been heading west, nearly the opposite direction of where they needed to go, but until they knew whether they were going to have enough crew to fly the ship, there really was no point in continuing on the way there. For the moment, the best thing he could do is let Doc tend to the two injured crewman and see if the situation was salvageable. To give the medic a smoother ride to work with, Razak decelerated to a slow crawl and maintained a westbound heading.

As he drove, he listened in on what was happening in the back, trying to gauge how much trouble they were in. Doc was having the others use their canteens to slowly flush out the eyes of the men who had been sprayed. Once the canteens had been emptied, he took two small cups from his med kit and filled them half full with fluid from a bottle. He had each man lean forward, put a cup over one eye, then tilt his head back. Then he instructed them to open their eye as wide as they could and roll the eye around in the socket. After about thirty seconds, he took the cups back, tossed the contents, added more fluid and had the men repeat the exercise with the other eye. When they were finished, he turned each man's face into the light coming in from the open back door and looked closely at their eyes, even pulling the lids back a little to look under them. He spoke with them, but too quietly for Razak to hear what was being said.

When Razak saw the medic start to put away his gear, he figured he had waited long enough, and asked Doc for a situation report. "Talk to me, Doc. These men going to be able to do their jobs?"

"Luckily, we treated them quickly." Doc told him. "Their eyes are going to be red for a few days and they'll probably sting for the next few hours, but they should be able to see just fine."

"Glad to hear it. Sounds like the mission is back on, folks." He started looking for the next opportunity to get the APC turned south.

The westbound street they were on turned into a bridge up ahead and as they passed over it, Razak saw that a southbound expressway crossed below. At the end of the bridge he steered off of the road, up and over a sidewalk, spinning the wheel and continuing to bring the APC's nose around until it was aimed down a steeply sloped, grass covered embankment. He straightened the wheel, shouted out a warning to his passengers to hold on to something and then he hit the gas. They bounced and slid down the hill, all eight wheels fighting for purchase and slinging dirt and grass into the air. The APC wanted to turn sideways, first one way and then the other. Fearing a rollover, he kept turning into the direction of the slides and managed to keep them moving in the right general direction. At the bottom of the hill, they tore through a chainlink fence, off of a three foot drop, and then they were on the expressway, heading south again.

After fifteen minutes driving in that direction, Razak thought they should be well past the southern end of the big crater, so he found another of the city's main arteries that was headed east and got on it. Along the way, they saw no more airborne Bugs, but smashed their way through several clusters of Warriors and continued unimpeded.

The areas they traveled through now were mainly industrial parks, vast stretches of land full of warehouses and factories. Andrea had told him that the shipyard's auxiliary landing pad sat in the middle of a warehouse district, so he thought they must be getting close. He asked Andrea if it was much further.

"It's not too far." she replied. "We're probably about ten minutes out." She pulled a map from the pocket of her sweatshirt and unfolded it. After taking a few seconds to orient herself, she began to give him directions to the landing pad.

The ship became visible when they were still a mile away, despite the rain and fog. It's black hull was like the back of some enormous whale, breaching from an ocean of cityscape. The ship only seemed to get larger the closer they got to it. He began to understand why Andrea had been worried about having enough room to land it.

"Your Maddy's a big girl, Topper." he said to Andrea.

In response, she sang a line from an old song. "She's a brick. . . house."

"Mighty, mighty." he agreed with a nod.

She directed him to an exit and then they had a straight line to the Madeleine's landing pad. As far as he could tell, the ship appeared to have remained unmolested. The Bugs must not have got to this area yet, because there was just no way they could have missed that behemoth.

Higgins stuck his head up between the two seats, wanting to get a peek at the ship. "Whoa." he said, taken aback by the sight of it. "It's like some kind of giant metal zeppelin."

From the back, Gossard spoke up, saying, "Higgins, 'metal zeppelin' may be the two coolest words ever to have toppled from your mouth. Kind of makes me want to air guitar."

Upon hearing that, Razak let out a little laugh, but he could see what Higgins meant. The Sweet Madeleine was from the early days of large scale starship building, and the style back then was loosely based on that of twentieth century nuclear submarines. Picture one of those, double it in scale, add a bank of thrusters at the rear and two massive vertical thrusters on each side and you had the general idea. She rested her bulk on six landing legs that folded down out of the belly of the ship and the feet on the end of those legs were larger than the APC they were riding in. They had to be, in order to evenly distribute that much weight. Any smaller and they would have shattered the concrete of any landing pad they set her down on.

They parked just up under the nose of the ship and everyone climbed out of the APC, some of them stretching to work out the kinks from being stuck in such a confined space. With Andrea in the lead, they walked about a quarter of the length of the ship to where a set of mobile stairs had been left placed under an entrance hatch. Captain Dahl went up the steps first to open a small panel next to the hatch and punch in a code on the keypad within. They heard the loud clunk of a hydraulic lock disengaging and then he stepped out of the way so someone with two functional arms could work the handles on the hatch and get it open. Andrea did the honors and swung the hatch down.

There were rungs on the inside of the hatch and they ran up the wall of the narrow shaft above. Andrea climbed up first, followed by a couple of her fellow crewman. Razak leaned over beneath the hatch and formed his hands into a stirrup, offering Tom Dahl some assistance with getting up onto the ladder. His broken arm would have made getting onto the ladder by himself next to impossible. Dahl accepted the offered leg-up, but did not bother to acknowledge the man who offered it. Razak nodded as he waited for the captain to clear the hatchway, considering the possibility of taking up yoga after all this was done. He was learning that taking deep breaths and letting them out slowly was doing wonders for his urge to wring the necks of those that deserved it.

Once Dahl was off the ladder, Razak climbed up it and found Andrea waiting at the top. She waited until the rest of the crewman and troopers were on board, and then she used another keypad set into a panel on the floor to raise and seal the hatch below. The room went dark, save for the lights on the trooper's helmets. Andrea continued pressing buttons on the keypad and lights began flickering to life around them.

While she was doing that, Captain Dahl and her fellow merchant marines had moved over to a bank of storage lockers and were using keys to unlock them. From the lockers they began to pull out a small arsenal of weapons and spare ammunition. Most of the guns were MMK-9As, more commonly known as "fleet rifles". They were slightly different than the standard MMK-9, because they had fixed stocks instead of the extendable variety and had no scope. There were also a few handguns, standard .45 automatics. Razak had to wonder if the MMK-9s had been bought legally, or if they had "fallen off a truck". He watched Andrea also unlock one of the lockers and pull out a machine gun and handgun of her own.

With only one good hand, Dahl was having trouble getting his gun loaded, and none of his crew were making any offers to help him. After watching him struggle with it for about a minute and a half, Razak decided that in the name of expediency, he would offer to load the gun for the captain. When he asked the man if he would like some assistance, Dahl only grunted and shoved the gun at him. Jean took the gun, slapped in the clip, chambered a round and engaged the safety. He smiled as he handed the gun back, but he was thinking of how difficult it would be for Dahl to get that safety switched off one handed. He might even have to try flipping it using his nose. The thought made it easy for Razak to smile. Apparently, none of this occurred to the captain, because he just slung the gun's strap over his shoulder, as is.

Figuring a little diplomacy wouldn't hurt, Razak said, "Mr Dahl, this is a beaut of a ship you got here. They sure don't make them like this anymore."

Dahl looked at him suspiciously, as if searching for a way that Razak's words could be taken as insult, but then must have decided that he was being sincere. "Yeah, well, she didn't always look this good. Twenty five years ago the Federation decided they were done with her, and sent her to the scrap heap. My father bought her from them, restored her and refitted her to be a merchant vessel. Up until her Cherenkov drive went out, she's been running like a dream the entire time." He slapped a bulkhead with his good hand and said, "Yep, she's seen a lot of space, this old girl."

There was a lot of pride on Dahl's face and Razak couldn't begrudge him that. However, hearing the part about his father did go a long ways in explaining how someone like Tom could end up the captain of a ship like the Madeleine.

"She probably saw some action when she was a troop transport." said Razak. "She would have been in her heyday during the war of thirty-two."

Tom didn't give any response to that, other than to turn away with a look of mild disgust on his face. Clearly, he loved his ship, but he sure didn't like to think about it's military past. Wanting to keep the good will going, Razak changed the subject.

"Did your father rename the ship when he bought it?"

"Yes." said Tom. "Her name was the Chamber's Ridge before."

"And who is Madeleine?"

"Madeleine was my mother's name." said the captain. "Why?"

Razak nodded, thoughtfully. "I was just curious. It didn't sound like the kind of name Fleet would have pinned on it. I think it's kind of sweet that your dad named it after your mom."

Dahl squinted at him, then said, "Yeah, well. I suppose we should get her underway. Everybody to your stations. Lieutenant, I'd appreciate it if you and your troopers would follow me to the bridge."

He wants to keep an eye on us, thought Razak. Can't have us snooping around.

Captain Dahl lead the way, followed by Andrea, a couple of the crewmen and then the troopers. The rest of the men had headed aft, presumably to some engine room.

One of the crewman that was accompanying them was named Greg Rouse, and he'd told them that he did something he called 'collision avoidance', which Razak could only assume involved running the radar or something like it. Collisions sounded like something they wanted to avoid, so whatever the man did for a living, Razak was glad to have him there. The other man, whose name was Mike Yoder, ran internal and external communications and managed the networking of the equipment on the bridge, which he said was akin to being the translator at the Tower of Babel.

Their path lead them through a series of hatches and narrow walkways, and along the way, Razak found that the interior of the ship were just as similar to that of a submarine as the exterior was. Tight spaces, rounded hatches for doors, walls lined with exposed plumbing. The floors were made of metal grating, and more plumbing was visible through them, running beneath their feet. Dim light came from rounded fixtures that stuck out from the walls, the glass of the lights protected by metal frames. Razak could see the breath of everyone who wasn't wearing a power suit, so he assumed it must be cold and a little damp inside the ship. There was condensation dripping from the ceiling in places.

After a short walk toward the bow of the ship, they turned off of a main passage, stepped through a pressure hatch and into a room with a metal spiral staircase. The stairs ascended around a central column into a circular shaft that reached far up into the ship over their heads. Tilting his head back and looking straight up, Razak could see a hatch about every ten feet up the shaft with a level number painted on the wall next to it. Aside from the staircase, the room also contained a narrow door that Andrea opened to reveal a small elevator, big enough to carry only three people at a time. The sight of that elevator came as a great relief, because the prospect of climbing that staircase had zero appeal.

Starting with Razak, Andrea and Dahl, the group started transferring to the bridge, three per trip. The three of them rode the little car to the top in silence, Razak self-conscious about how much his bulky armor must be crowding the other two people in such a small space. Fortunately, the little elevator moved surprisingly fast and it was only a few seconds before they were stepping onto the Madeleine's bridge. The elevator door shut behind them and they heard it plunge back down the shaft to bring up more of those waiting below. Within a few minutes time, the remaining crewman and troopers had joined them in the ship's control room.

Andrea and the other crewman moved to their stations and began the process of powering everything up. The bridge was soon full of the sounds of humming power supplies, the whir of cooling fans, boot beeps, the clicks of drives, and the high pitched whine of touch screen vid panels heating up.

The bridge was placed at the very nose of the ship at the exact halfway point of it's height. A window, four feet tall starting at waist level, curved uninterrupted all the way around the bridge, allowing for an external view of over one hundred and eighty degrees. Most of the room was occupied by a series of stepped platforms that comprised the ship's control stations, the central and highest of which was the pilot's station. Each station consisted of a flight seat, complete with a full safety harness, and a wrap around bank of instrument panels, with only a narrow space left to provide entry.

As Razak watched the ship's operators take their seats, he realized that the Madeleine was run with a mixture of modern and antiquated technology. A lot of the equipment had obviously been added since the ship was originally built, and some of it was probably only within the last few years. However, he would guess that most if not all of the original equipment was still there. coexisting with the new. Some of the the new vid panel controls were mounted on articulating swing arms that were bolted onto the walls or the sides of the old equipment, but others had just been mounted flat on spacers directly over the obsolete instrument panels they had replaced. Despite all the updating, Razak could see that a lot of the old school starship tech that was mixed in with the new was apparently still in use. There were many panels full of dials, gauges, switches, sliders, levers, throttle controls, and rows upon rows of different colored buttons each with it's own with flashing light, all of which had powered on with the rest of the newer equipment. It looked like a big jury rigged mess to Razak, and the fact that Tom Dahl and his crew use it to criss-cross the galaxy was a wonder to him.

While the Madeleine's crew went about the business of getting the ship up and running, the troopers moved over to look out the window of the bridge, taking in the view their high vantage point offered. The weather was preventing them from seeing too far out across the city, but within their field of view, they could see several meteor impact sites, marked with wide columns of smoke that were drifting up into the air. A wind from the west was pushing the smoke out toward the Atlantic Ocean. It was too far and too rainy for them to catch a glimpse of where the Transport Bug had hit.

"The city looks dead." said Dizzy, almost in a whisper.

Razak knew what she meant. He had never seen the city look so still. On any normal day, the sky would been full of a thousand ships and transports coming and going. He would have been able to see the monorails whipping along their tracks. The huge billboard screens attached to the sides of tall buildings would have been playing their 24/7 cycle of commercial advertisements. There would have been people; they would have appeared ant sized from here, but they would have been walking up and down the streets by the millions. But there was nothing moving out there, other than the smoke billowing up from the meteor craters. It did look dead. He wondered, had the Bugs managed to kill his city?

He'd had a look at the map at the school earlier, and he knew that when the war was over, there wasn't going to be anything for him to come home to here. The house he had grown up in, and then inherited from his parents was gone along with everything else he owned. The school he taught at was gone, too, so he couldn't even expect a job to be waiting for him when he came back. Maybe some of his friends had survived, but he had never been that close to anyone that lived here, anyway. Acquaintances, really. The more he thought about it, the more he thought that maybe he wouldn't come back here at all. He would start over someplace else. Maybe he'd buy some property by that lake in Colorado and put a cabin on it, like he had always wanted to.

A vibration in the floor beneath his feet pulled him from his thoughts, and he realized that he was feeling the engines starting. When he turned around, he saw that Andrea was sitting in the pilot's seat, flipping switches and tapping away at her vid panels. The vibration of the ship was making a coffee cup on a shelf next to her chair slide around and rattle.

"I don't want to sit here too long with the engines running." said Andrea. "It might catch some Bug's attention. But she's been sitting here for couple of months, so I do need to give her a couple of minutes to warm up."

"I understand." Razak told her. "It's pretty quiet out there right now."

Tom was at an instrument panel that was labeled 'engine thrust output' and he was making tiny adjustments to a set of sliders and watching the height of the bars displayed on the screen. "Her numbers are looking better than I would have expected with her having sat for so long." he said to Andrea over his shoulder. "Should only take a couple minutes to get her tuned."

The crewman Mike popped his head up from behind a wall of vid screens, "Looks like the surface scanner updated it's software while we were gone. It'll be fun figuring out where they put everything this time."

A vid panel to Andrea's left started to flash on and off, and she extended a leg and gave it a good solid kick with her boot. The screen popped on and stayed on. She looked at another screen and said, "Looks like the TDR didn't update, so naturally, there's a conflict. We ain't got time to do an update right now, so we'll have to use the RAYSYS."

"Hopefully anyone else flying out there will have version seven or higher, otherwise, they may not see us." said Greg Rouse.

Andrea was tapping and swiping on one of her larger touch screens, adding views from the ship's many external cameras. "Yeah, well, Maddy's running lights are on, and she ain't exactly petite. They'd just better be watching where they're going, 'cause it ain't gonna bother Maddy none if they run into us. I doubt there's a ship flying within the 'sphere that could even put a dent in her. "

The captain and his crew continued to talk in indecipherable acronyms, jargon and nomenclature, but none of it sounded like it was the showstopper kind, so the troopers just tried to stay quiet and out of the way. As Dahl continued to manipulate the sliders, Razak noticed that the vibration he had been feeling was gradually going away, and soon all he felt was a low thrumming sensation.

About five minutes after the engines had started, Andrea said, "I got all greens from the engine room. I guess it's time to see if Maddy remembers which way is up."

"Should we be sitting somewhere?" asked Higgins, as he swiveled his head around, looking for seats. "Strapping in or something?"

Andrea smiled at him and said, "Don't worry. I'll take it easy on you. We're going to be moving slow and low." Keeping one hand on the yoke, she reached over with the other and gripped the nearest of the throttle controls. Very slowly, she eased it forward and as she did, the engine thrum went up in pitch

The floor shifted below Razak's feet and he felt his stomach lurch a little He put one hand back on the window sill to steady himself, then turned to look through the window and saw the city falling away below them. They continued to rise until a Greg gave Andrea an altitude reading of three hundred feet, then she made an adjustment to the throttle, and brought the ship's ascent to a stop. Then the view out the window spun counter clockwise as she twisted the yoke to bring the bow around to point north east. She reached over to push her other throttle forward a tick and the Madeleine slowly started moving forward.

As she piloted the ship, Razak could hear Andrea talking quietly, and at first, he wasn't sure who she was speaking to. But when he listened a little closer, he picked up the name, "Maddy" and realized she was talking to the ship itself. Her tone was soothing and the phrases sounded like the kind you would use with a horse. "That's a girl. Easy now. Steady." He thought he could remember hearing her do the same thing back in the old days, with retrieval ships and drop ships. And he also seemed to remember her giving a ship a blistering dress down if it wasn't behaving like she wanted it to. Threatening to have it dismantled and sold for scrap if it didn't get it's nose up and keep it up, that kind of thing .

Rico stepped closer to his lieutenant. "Just out of curiosity, do we have a plan for where we are taking all these people after we pick them up?"

"That's actually a good question." Razak replied. "Maybe we should ask the folks who are running the show. Dahl? Topper? You got any notion of where you're heading after the pick-up?"

Tom said, "Outside of the city, that much is sure. I ain't staying in this Bug infested burg one second longer than I have to."

Andrea's eyes continued to flicker back and forth between her multitude of vid screens while she said, "I kind of like the looks of Rosario, a couple hundred miles toward the north east. It's a bigger city, so it can probably handle the influx of refugees, plus I'm seeing that they have some big airfields there."

Captain Dahl was nodding like that sounded good to him. "A couple hundred miles sounds about right."

Razak liked it, too. Far enough away that the refugees would have some warning should the Bugs make a move in that direction, but still close enough that it wouldn't be a huge hassle to get back home if and when this whole mess was over.

"I'm seeing a lot of Bug movement on the ground." Andrea tapped on the screen with the camera views, and a larger version of one of it's view popped up on a different screen. She spun it around to give them a better look at it.

The camera pointed straight down from the bottom of the ship, a bird's eye view of the building tops and streets below. Warrior Bugs were flowing through the streets in a steady stream, by the hundreds now.

"Hopefully they aren't all headed towards the school." Goss' voice was tense with concern. "They wouldn't be able to hold off this many for very long."

"I don't think that's where they're going." Andrea told him. "That camera is oriented the same as the ship, so those Bugs are headed southeast. The school's to the northeast."

Razak watched the screen and could feel his own anxiety mounting, but he had a different worry. "Thing is, our school is probably not the only place out there that people are gathering up. We should probably find out where they are all headed."

"Let's go check it out." Andrea said.

"Oooh, no!" Tom jumped in with both feet. "No way! The deal is that we rescue the people from the school, and then we leave. You're not taking my ship anywhere else. Absolutely not."

Razak and Andrea exchanged looks and she nodded. "Tom," she said. "we need to go find out what these Bugs are up to. People could be dying."

"I'm sure people are dying, all over the city. But that's not for us to worry about. Citizens and the military, they're the ones who are supposed to deal with that. That's why the rest of us peons have spend our lives letting them walk all over us. I say, let them deal with it. If the lieutenant and his squad would like for us to drop them off here, I'll be happy to do that, but this ship is going back to the school, and then it's lighting out."

Andrea wasn't listening, she was already bringing the ship around. When Tom saw this, he reached back with his good hand for the grip of his MMK. "Andrea, this is my ship! Do not even try it!" The words came out in what was meant to be a stern commanding shout, but instead it came off like the petulant protest of an angry toddler.

In sharp contrast, in his calmest, most reasonable tone, Razak said, "Mr Dahl, take your hand off the gun, please."

Tom's head whipped around, his eyes full of fury. "Now, you listen here-" He stopped mid sentence as the two men made eye contact. Something that he saw in Razak's face had given him reason to pause.

"Please." Razak said again. "Let's not do anything stupid. I'd hate to see the bridge of this beautiful ship get all shot to pieces."

Tom clenched his teeth, his lip quivered, but he did not take in the deep breath that would come before he raised the gun. Razak waited and watched. Finally, the captain stretched his fingers out straight and moved his hand away from the MMK.

He turned to Andrea and snarled, "When this is through, you're fired."

"It's what you have to do." She didn't take her eyes from her screens. "I understand."

While Dahl's attention was elsewhere, Razak turned around and caught Dizzy's eye. He pointed two fingers at his own eyes and then a thumb back at the captain. Watch him. She nodded and crossed the bridge to where she would have a clearer line of fire. As far as he could tell, the other two crewman had made no move to back their captain, so he was less worried about them. His first instincts that they were more level headed than their employer seemed to have proven correct

Andrea had swung the Madeleine's nose around and they were now tracking the stream of Warrior Bugs from above as they weaved in and out of the city blocks, their overall bearing a constant southeast. Rico went to the window and looked out ahead, trying to determine what the destination was.

"I think I see something big ahead." he said. "Some kind of arena."

"Greg," said Andrea. "can you look up what that arena is?"

Greg Rouse tapped away at a keyboard, swiped a couple times at a map on a vid screen and then told her it was a soccer stadium.

"Well, crap." she replied.

"That not good?" asked Razak.

"Too small to bring Maddy down in by a long shot. What I'd give for a good car racing track right now."

"Maybe there's a big parking lot." he suggested.

"Not in this city. If there is a parking lot, it will most likely be underground, beneath the stadium. A place that small, I doubt it will have even that."

As they drew closer to the arena, it became clear that whoever was holed up in there did not have someone like Principal Shubert on hand. Other than some buses parked in front of the various entrances, no defenses had been set up outside the stadium. Instead, they were relying entirely on the walls of the stadium itself. It might have been a passable plan if it wasn't for the fact that the arena was constructed of wood. This was not one of the big professional soccer stadiums; it only had enough seating for around five thousand people and it's surrounding walls were only about two stories high. The river of Bugs that they had been following was washing up against the walls of the stadium, and the wooden structure was no match for Arachnid beak and claw.

Along the top of the wall, they could see the barrel flash of automatic gunfire being aimed down into the mass of Bugs below. There were so many Bugs, though, it was impossible to see if it was having any effect. Razak could see that the Bugs had managed to tear some small holes in the walls, and the only thing preventing them from swarming through them was that in their eagerness, multiple Bugs were trying to go through the holes all at once and were only managing to get themselves stuck.

They were close enough to see inside now and a crowd of several thousand could be seen on the grass of the soccer field. Some of them were huddling beneath sheets of clear plastic and blue tarps, trying to stay dry in the cold drizzle. He saw upturned faces, people pointing up at the ship. They think they're saved, he thought. He didn't know if they could be saved.

It looked to Razak like the number of people that were armed were a small minority, and most of those were at the top of the bleachers, defending the walls. He saw some more weapons on a small group of men and women down near the home team goal line, and he had to wonder why they weren't up on the wall, too. Then he noticed that that all seemed to be using a wheelchair, a cane, or crutches of some kind. It was the steep steps of the bleachers that were keeping these men and women out of the fight.

Razak triaged. The school was better defended than this, and there was a chance that it may not even be getting swarmed yet. The soccer field had too few defenders, and could not be held. All those people would be slaughtered once the Bugs broke through. This situation would have to be dealt with first. The ship could not land, so the Roughnecks would have to go down into that nightmare. The weapons the squad had on hand were not going to be enough. They would need whatever hardware Dahl had squirreled away on board and Dahl wasn't going to give that up without a fight.

He wished more than anything that Carl Jenkins was with them. It would only have taken the psychic a few seconds to pluck the location of the military supplies out of Dahl's head. Wait. An idea came to him.

He turned to look at the members of his squad, one after the other, evaluating their suitability for his plan. His eyes landed on Higgins, and he gave a little nod, before crossing the bridge to lean in close to to the young journalists and say, "Play along and follow my lead."

Higgins looked bewildered and started to ask what he meant, but Razak had already spun in his heel and was headed back over to stand in front of Captain Dahl.

Dahl looked at him with with a scowl of angry distrust. "What do you want?"

"Captain, it's come to my attention that you have been holding onto some of the Federation's military hardware for safekeeping. The Federation thanks you for the service, but we will need that equipment back now."

At first, Tom only looked at him blankly, like he had no comprehension of what the Lieutenant had just said. Then his body jerked as the words finally got through, and his eyes went wide. He started to say something, but then it sounded like he was trying to say three sentences at once and it all came out in a sputter and a coughing fit. He sucked in a breath and took another shot at it. "Wha-Wai-Who- I mean, I don't, I don't know what you're talking about." He managed to muster up a little angry indignation just at the tail end of the sentence.

"I really don't have time to argue about this, so I'm going to make it quick. You see Trooper Higgins over there? What do you suppose he does for the squad?"

Tom glanced over at Higgins, then back to Razak. "He's always got that camera stuck to his face. I figured he was one of Fednet's reporters."

"I understand why you would think that, because that is his cover. But, Higgins is actually a Spec-ops trained psychic."

Dahl's eyes locked onto Higgins, and suddenly, they were nearly bulging from their sockets. Razak glanced over at Higgins, who was trying to recover from the shock of learning that he was a psychic. His expression changed to what must have been his idea of what a psychic should look like. His lips pursed slightly and he raised one eyebrow. He raised his hands and placed the tips of the first two fingers of each hand on the temple area of his helmet. The barest cock of the head completed the look. Razak prayed that none of the squad burst out laughing.

"Yeah, he's like a drug sniffing dog, only instead of drugs, he's trained to sniff out two things. Bugs and lies. He says you can't stop thinking about that hidden cache of weapons, and that you're terrified we'll find them."

"He's a liar!" Tom shouted, then at Higgins, "You stay out of my head! I got rights!"

"Tom, the jig is up. We know you have the stuff, and what you need to understand is, I don't care if you stole it. What's important is that we need it now, because me and my squad are going to drop down into that mess of Bugs and we are going to need all the help that we can get. The way I see it, there are two ways we can go about this. You can tell me where you got them stashed and no one is the wiser. In all this chaos, there's no way anyone would ever be able to figure out how a bunch of missing hardware should suddenly show up in Buenos Aires."

"I don't have any-"

"Or, I can have Higgins start going through your head like it's a file cabinet, and he'll dig out the answer."

"You can't do this!" Tom wailed. "I got rights. The right to my own mental privacy!"

"You ever seen anyone after a psychic has done some deep digging through their mind? It ain't pretty. Drooling catatonics. The lucky ones, that is."

"Wait! Wait! Let me think." Tom held his good hand up, and shook it in the air. "Give me a second, here." He stared at Razak's feet, talking to himself quietly.

"We don't have time for-"

"Shut up!" said Tom. "You know what? I think you're lying. I don't believe that kid's a psychic. I don't."

"Then how do I know what I know?"

"You don't know nothing. You just see a hard working merchant marine and you figure, I bet he's skimming off the Federation. This is a bluff, that's all."

"Mr, Dahl," said Razak. "do you remember back at the school? How long were you standing in line next to that Imposter Bug? You didn't have the first clue that it wasn't human. How do you think I knew?"

That made Tom a little uncertain. "I dunno. Maybe you'd seen one before, and recognized it."

"Topper was standing right next to you, and I had worked with her for years. I didn't see her in that crowd. No, it was Higgins that told me about the Bug. Remember him standing right there next to me?"

Tom closed his eyes tight, trying to remember how everything had played out. He'd been angry at the time, so the details are going to be fuzzy. "I can't remember if. . ."

"Look, time's up. We'll do this the hard way. Higgins, why don't you come over here and give Mr Dahl's noggin a good and thorough probing?"

"No! Wait! You stay over there!" Tom jabbed a finger in Higgins' direction. "All right, now. Look, sometime the military folks do a shabby job, and when they unload, some things get left behind on the ship. That ain't my fault. I can't just leave that stuff sitting around, so-"

Razak tapped his wrist. "No time. I don't care. Show me where it is."

"Fine. I'll show you. But you keep that freak away from me!"

"Thank you, Mr Dahl. I really do appreciate it. Just give me one moment." Razak walked over to Andrea's pilot chair and leaned down to speak to her quietly. Before he could say anything, she spoke first. "Jean, there are a lot of Bugs down there."

"I know." he told her. "Options are few and far between here, though. I need you to keep me on coms, even after I'm off the ship."

She nodded. "I'll have Mike patch it through one of the long range channels, but I'll warn you, her coms are old and dodgy, and Tom's too cheap to get them fixed. You got a plan?"

"Still working on that. How far is it from here to the school?"

She tapped one of her screens, pulled up a map, held a finger on it to zoom, then dragged the finger to connect two places. "Looks like about two and a half miles, straight flight, figure three and a half with city blocks."

He grimaced upon hearing that. "That's going to be a long stroll through hell."

"The streets were pretty clear." she told him. "Maybe they have enough buses."

Razak shook his head. "Didn't look like enough by half. What they have will help, but a lot of us are going to be hoofing it. Nothing to be done about it. Look, once we're off of the ship, just get yourself to the school. Get everyone on board and then wait for us as long as you can. I'll get these people there as fast as I can. Now, if Dahl gives you any trouble. . ."

She cut him off. "Look, I know I said he couldn't fly one handed, but that doesn't mean I can't." She reached over with one hand and pulled back her sweatshirt to reveal her .45 tucked into the seat beside her. "Don't you worry about Tom."

"Good." he said as he stood back up. "SICON was a pack of fools when they let you go, Topper."

"Hey, that's my daily affirmation!" she said with a cocky grin. "Take care of yourself down there, Jean."

Tom Dahl lead the Roughnecks down through the ship's narrow winding passages to the cargo bay, to show them where he had the stolen hardware hidden. Along the way, he continued to try to explain why it was perfectly reasonable that he should have what appeared to be stolen hardware on board, and Razak kept reassuring him that once the squad had taken it off his hands, he had nothing more to worry about. Once they reached the cargo hold, he used a winch and pulley system that ran across the bay's ceiling to raise one of the heavy metal floor panels up, then removed another false panel beneath it that was covered with fake plumbing and electrical conduit. A hidden compartment was revealed, forty feet wide, twenty feet deep and it extended further up into the darkness under the cargo bay floor. Tarp covered crates were stacked to each side of the compartment all the way to the top, and while many of them looked military, there was civilian merchandise down there as well.

A ladder was propped against the closest wall of the compartment, and Gossard and Razak used it to climb down for a closer look, ignoring Tom when he started asking how much Razak's amnesty would cover. Was it just the military hardware, or would he keep quiet about the stolen civilian property, too?

"Crooked little son of a gun, isn't he?" said Goss quietly.

"As a dog's leg. Let's see what the little thief has got for us." Razak lifted a tarp, saw that it contained solar power cells for an atmospheric processor. The crate beneath it was full of starship hull patching kits.

"You have to wonder how many more like him there are out there." said Gossard. "It's no wonder we've spent this war undersupplied." Goss pulled back a tarp that was partially covering some SICON stamped crates. Stenciled letters on the side said that they were full of mortar rounds. "I can remember times that those would have come in handy." he said.

"If he's got a launcher in here somewhere they'll come in handy now." Razak searched the labels on nearby crates.

"I think we'd be better off without the launcher, anyway. None of us have the training. We can arm these by hand and just drop them off the ship straight onto the Bugs."

"You know how to arm them?"

Goss nodded."It's easy. Twist the top, bang the bottom on the ground, then get rid of it fast. So simple, a Brutto could do it."

Razak looked at the crates of mortars, and then at the stacks of hardware yet to be revealed. "Let's start softening the Bugs up while we check out what else we've got here. Have them hoist these mortars out and then show the others how to use them. Not Flores, though. Tell her to keep her eye on the Captain."

"Will do, sir." Gossard replied, before shouting up to those on deck to lower the winch line.

While the mortars were being transferred to the deck above, Razak called up Andrea on coms to request that she lower the cargo bay's loading ramp and put the ship in the best position to bombard the Bugs. Then he ventured down the walkway between the crates, lifting tarps and letting his helmet light illuminate the labels.

The civilian stuff was pretty useless to their cause, mainly toys, electronics, medications, and designer clothing. Even some of the military items were not going to be of any help in this situation; MREs (why someone would steal them, Razak could not fathom), water purification systems, latrine composting enzymes, several complete sets of ship maintenance tools. One very large wooden crate at the very back of the compartment had a label that said that it contained a pair of vertical thrusters for a dropship. He saw some Marauder replacement parts that he could remember needing desperately several times over the course of the war.

Despite those interesting, but ultimately disappointing finds, there were some gems to be found in the mix, too. He located four crates, each containing a dozen Morita assault rifles, two more loaded with MMK-9s, and four boxes full of ammo. There was a crate containing fifty fully stocked medic's kits he thought they might need as soon as they reached the ground. A case with two flamethrowers but no fuel was no good to anyone, but there was a grenade launcher and twenty grenades.

He found two cases with all the labels and stamps scraped off, and when he opened them he found a pair of Perfs, a type of chain fed, three barrelled minigun that was capable of spitting out around a thousand rounds a minute. These came with a backpack that replaced the standard MI rocket-pack with a large ammo case that would feed a belt of ammunition into the gun. The backpack weighed a hundred and fifty pounds and the gun itself was another twenty-five, but this was perfectly reasonable for anyone in a powersuit. The Perf guns were even compatible with the powersuit's computer assisted targeting systems. For a support weapon, these were about the next best thing to a Marauder.

Razak started pulling out the gear he thought they could use, but paused when he heard a distant thump. When he heard more of them, he decided it must be the sound of the mortars landing on the Bugs. He went back to his task, and was soon joined once again by Gossard who reported that the thinning of the Bug herd had begun.

Several pallets were tucked in between a couple stacks of crates near the front, and Razak pulled one out to lay it on the floor. Then the two troopers each grabbed one end of a crate and together they began carrying them out to stack on the pallet. He felt Tom Dahl's eyes watching them as they carried out each piece of hardware, trying to see what stolen goods Razak was reclaiming from him.

When the captain saw them carry out the cases with the Perf guns, he glowered down at them with flared nostrils, looking like some enraged chimpanzee. No doubt, he had been counting on the scraped off labels and stamps to keep these valuable items from being discovered. Even with the proof of his crimes in their hands, Dahl was still managing to see himself as the wronged party, the victim.

"You're doing the right thing here, Mr Dahl." Razak told him. "This stuff is going to save lives."

The Captain made no response, other than to turn his head to spit and then stomp away.

Gossard smirked as they heaved the crate up onto the stack. "He's a real credit to the species, that one."

Razak nodded. "I think I'd be relieved to find out he was being manipulated by a Control Bug, but realistically, I don't think any Bug is capable of being that motivated by self interest. I'm afraid we have to claim him."

Razak had to admit, he was starting to let the captain's behavior get to him. Actually seeing the items that Tom had been skimming had made him feel angrier than he had expected. If there was one thing he knew, it was that troops lived or died depending on the supplies they were provided. How many lives had been lost because of this kind of theft? He had given his word that the man had nothing to fear if he showed them where the goods were, but in Razak's opinion, Dahl's crimes were worth at least a flogging, if not a firing squad. His word was bond, but he didn't know how much more of the captain's unrepentant attitude he could take. The best thing to do was hurry up and get off the ship, before he felt provoked to do something he would regret.

Once all the crates that they would be taking were stacked on the pallet, Gossard went up to rig a harness on the winch line, and then used a remote operator control to lower it down to his lieutenant. Razak centered the harness on the stack, then pulled the straps down over the sides and slid the hooks through the appropriate holes in the pallet. When he was done, Gossard raised the stack up out of the hole and started running the winch down it's track towards the open loading ramp.

Razak climbed up the ladder, and out of the compartment. Across the cargo bay, he spotted Tom Dahl leaning against the wall, with his good arm crossed over the one in the sling, soaking in his own self pity. Nearby, Dizzy was sitting on the raised blades of a forklift with her gun in her lap, trying to inconspicuously keep one eye on the captain while at the same time watch with open envy as her squadmates threw mortars off of the ramp onto the Bugs below. He thought she looked a little pouty, too, but figured he would make it up to her by letting her have the grenade launcher. It was one of her favorite toys and should perk her right up.

Dahl pushed off the wall and followed Razak as he strode down the length of the cargo bay, with Dizzy trailing behind him to the rear. Gossard had the winch extended out to the end of the ramp and had lowered the crates to rest on the platform. At the end of the ramp, Razak looked into the mortar crates to see how many were left and saw that they were down to the last few. Then he took a look down to the ground fifty feet below to see what affect they'd had and the results brought a smile to his face. A few hundred of the Bugs were now in pieces, piled up around the base of the arena. More Bugs were still streaming in, but there was nowhere near the number they had seen when they had first arrived.

"I like what you've done with the place." he said to the squad as they used the last few mortars to continue their bombardment .

"The elements were all there," explained Doc. "they just needed a little rearranging. Once you realize the Bugs look better without legs, it all just falls into place."

Rico reached into the crate, pulled out a mortar and said, "Last one, Diz. You want the honors?"

"Sweet!" she said, and caught the shell when he tossed it to her. She crept over to the edge of the ramp and took her time locating a nice cluster of Bugs before arming the mortar and throwing it off the ramp in a perfect spiral. After Razak heard it explode, the rest of the squad congratulated her on her aim. "Still got it." she said with a grin.

"Before we head down, there's a few things in the stack that we need to pull out. Doc and Gossard, those unmarked crates are for you."

Goss faked surprise. "What? Why didn't you tell us earlier, El-Tee? We didn't get you anything."

While they loosened the straps and removed the crates, he told Flores that she could use the grenade launcher and informed Higgins that he would get to play her porter, and carry the grenade supply for her. One of them was very happy, the other not so much.

"Whoa-ho-ho!" said Doc when he flipped his weapons case open and saw what lay within. He stood up wielding the Perf gun and said, "Say hello to my little friend!"

Gossard paused in the middle of unpacking his own and frowned up at Doc with a quivering lip. "But, but. . ." he whimpered. "Doc, I thought I was your little friend."

Doc busted out laughing. "Goss, my man, you are a freak."

"Can we please roll credits on comedy hour?" asked Razak. "We do have some things that need doing. You know . . Bugs. . . people in danger. . ." It came out sterner than he had intended and he immediately regretted it. He knew that humor was one of the things that kept his squad's morale up, even in the most dire of circumstances. Sometimes, it was the only thing. The truth was, he was very tired, very irritated and he just really wanted to hurry up with getting off of this vessel, and away from it's captain. It was all making his temper a little shorter than he would have usually allowed.

"Sorry, boss." said Doc as he tried his best to stifle a laugh. It was a lost cause, though, because the rest of the Roughnecks were just as tired as their lieutenant was, and a bad case of the giggles was taking hold. It soon spread infectiously to the rest of the squad and all the lieutenant could do was stand there staring at the ceiling of the cargo bay while they got it out of their systems. Doc and Gossard tried not to look at each other as they removed their backpacks and replaced them with the Perf's ammo feeders, but all the while they still couldn't help letting a snicker slip out here and there. While that was underway, Rico and Dizzy were securing the harness straps back onto the pallet and cinching them down tight. Razak heard Dizzy snort, then sniff loudly. Higgins let an almost girlish giggle that made Razak feel a smile threaten to break out on his own face.

Shaking it off, he said, "Alright, knock it off before you get me going, ya' bunch of lunatics."

The squad responded with a chorus of "Sorry, sir."

With the help of Higgins and Rico, Doc and Gossard got the ammo belts drawn out of the backpacks and fed into their guns. Higgins did have to be reminded that the pointy end of the bullet pointed forward, and the belt would function much better without a twist in it, but even with that minor setback, they were soon ready to rock and roll.

They couldn't afford to take Doc and Gossard's rocket packs with them, so for once, Tom was going to be able to legitimately claim that the military had left gear behind on his ship. Before leaving them behind, however, Razak stripped out the fuel and power cells, and replaced the nearly depleted fuel cell from his own rockets with the completely full one from Gossard's. The rest he tucked away into the pouches of his power suit, in case they would be needed later. The Moritas that belonged to Goss and Doc were taken along and would be given to someone on the ground.

When everyone stood ready, Razak told them, "I expect things will be crazy when we get on the ground, so I better give you your marching orders before we head down there. Sergeant Rico, you will stay with me and help me hand out the weapons. The rest of you I want to get to the top of the bleachers and reinforce those shooters." He reached over and knocked on two of the cases at the top of the stack with the knuckles of his prosthetic hand. "Flores, Higgins, these two are the grenades and the launcher. Flores, you need to take it easy on the grenades. Only use them for clusters of three Bugs or more. Any less than that and I want you to use your UAR-15. I want a nice wide perimeter around the arena cleared of Bugs. After we get the weapons handed out, I'm going to be going out to inspect those buses, and I don't want to see any Bugs out there. You get me?" The team acknowledged him with a "Yes, sir." and he continued. "I figure the best way to get everyone to the ground is for the rest of you to ride the crates down while I lower them. After that, I'll just drop down on my own using my rockets. Anybody got any questions? No? Good. Mount up."

While the team climbed up onto the crates and got themselves a good hand hold on the winch cable, Razak radioed up to let Andrea know that they were ready to disembark. He asked her to move them out over the soccer field and she obliged, gently reversing the Madeleine until they were over the grass and the crowd of refugees.

He used the winch control to raise the crates, slowly moved them out past the end of the ramp and pushed up on the little joystick that made the winch unwind it's cable. When the crowd below saw that they were coming down, it pulled back out of the way, giving them a clear space of open grass that they could set the crates down on. When Razak saw the cable start to go slack, he knew the supplies had touched ground, and he let off on the joystick. The squad below was unhooking the harness when he handed the control over to Tom.

He stood there for a moment watching as the harness was being reeled in, then said, "Captain, I'm going to move these people to the school as fast as I can. I expect to find you waiting for me when I get there."

Tom made no reply, and Razak had not expected one. He did not turn to look at the captain, knowing that he would probably have that same disgusted scowl on his face, and he thought that if he had to see it again, he might not be able to resist the urge to punch the man in the face. Instead, Razak pulled out the control for his jetpack, fired the rockets up and jumped off of the Madeleine and into the open air.

As his rockets lowered him to the ground, Razak could see that the crowd has closed back in around his troopers and their supplies. He could hear the din of their clamoring even over his rockets and assumed they were all trying to shout questions over each other, demanding news from his squad. They weren't really leaving him with a lot of options for places to land. He aimed for the only safe landing spot he could see, the top of the crate pile. Cutting the jets while he was still a little bit above the target, he dropped the last few feet and landed on the cases with a loud thump.

His sudden appearance made for quite the dramatic entrance, and the crowd was stunned into silence. Taking advantage of the temporary lull in the noise, he launched immediately into taking control of the situation.

Remaining up on top of the crate stack where everyone could see him, he used his helmet's external speakers to amplify his voice. "Alright, everybody listen up. I'm Lieutenant Razak of Alpha Squad, Mobile Infantry. I know a lot of people are scared and everyone wants to know what's going on, but I need you folks to calm down, then back up and give us some breathing room. We need to let my squad get up on the top of the wall so they can start doing some good, and then I can start letting you know what's going on. That's right, back it up. That means all of you. You people over here, I need you to make a path so these troopers can get through." He indicated with two hands pointed due east where he wanted a hole made in the sea of people. The crowd divided in the spot he had indicated, pushing and shoving against each other to clear a walkway.

The squad waited for Dizzy and Higgins to dig out their cases and then together they pushed into the narrow track the crowd had provided for them, headed for the nearest staircase that would take them to the top of the bleachers.

Once he saw that his troopers were in the clear, he resumed his address to the surrounding mass of people, saying, "Okay, I need everyone to close their mouths and listen to what I have to say. I know you have been waiting for the cavalry to arrive. I'm am sorry, but for the foreseeable future, we are all the cavalry you can expect to see. SICON has all available transports tied up with moving troops and supplies, and can not spare any for civilian evacuations."

The crowd erupted into a deafening uproar of protest, so he cranked the volume on his helmet, and shouted, "Quiet, now!" He had cranked the volume a little too high and some of the closest people, including Rico, were covering their ears and cringing. It had the desired effect, though and they quieted down again.

"I'm sorry. Didn't mean for it to be that loud." he said as he dialed the volume back down. "We do not have time for long explanations, and I do not have time for arguments, so I will just say this once, if you want to live, listen carefully and do what I tell you."

"You can not stay here. The Bugs are going to keep coming and this arena is not strong enough to keep them out. They will tear this place apart. We do not have the personnel, supplies, weapons, or ammunition to withstand a sustained attack. We can not hold this arena." He pointed at the Madeleine, which was now moving away to the north. "This place is too small for our transport to land."

"What?" he heard someone shout. "They're just going to leave us here?"

"No, let me finish. Please be quiet. I want to get each and every one of you out of this alive, and I can only do that if you close your mouths and do as I tell you. We need to move to Freemonte High School, because that's where that transport will be waiting for us. It's going to be a walk of about three and a half miles."

When the crowd started to protest this time, he pulled his Morita from his backpack and fired a short burst into the air. "Look, you do not have to come with us. Like I said, I'm only talking to those who want to live. The rest of you can do what you want, but you have to shut up and stay out of our way. Now, I see you have some buses outside. I need to to speak to the drivers of those buses and we need to find out which of the buses will still run. There are not enough buses to carry everyone, so a lot of us are going to be walking. The only people that we will be loading onto the buses are those that absolutely can not walk three and a half miles. The elderly. The disabled. The very young. Let me be clear, if you are capable of walking, you will not be allowed on the bus."

He gave them a few moments to let that seep into their brains before moving on. "There will be Bugs attacking along the way, and the more of us that are armed, the better chance we all have of surviving.I have here several cases of automatic weapons along with the necessary ammunition. Any person that can show me a citizen ID, I will provide with a weapon. After that, I will give a gun to anyone over the age of eighteen that can show me a civilian ID that doesn't have a washout stamp on it and is willing to be sworn into the Mobile Infantry. I will swear you in on the spot. We can sort out all the paperwork and other details later. "

"If we work together, watch out for one another, and keep our wits about us, I believe we can get every one of us to the transport safely. We need to get ourselves organized, and get this show on the road. We are burning daylight, and that transport is not going to wait forever."

"The first thing I want to do is start handing out these weapons. If you feel you qualify to have one, come up and see us. Have your IDs out, because we will not give a weapon to anyone without one."

He hopped down from the crates to the ground next to Rico, and said, "Sergeant, get one of those cases open."

They sorted through those who lined up for a weapon as quickly and efficiently as you could expect, under the circumstances. There were many people who were not citizens, but were willing to be sworn in, and these they diverted over to a designated section of the bleachers. where they could wait while Razak and Rico processed through the rest of the crowd, turning away those that did not qualify and handing over guns to anyone who could prove citizenship. There were more people wanting guns than guns to give out, so Rico suggest that they start collecting the ID cards of those who wanted to swear in to the service and later they could use them to do a drawing. Razak agreed, as giving the guns away by lottery seemed like the only fair method. There were arguments along the way, from those who swore they were citizens but had no proof, and some of them were probably telling the truth, but Razak had to hold his ground. He felt bad for them, but he couldn't even offer to let them join those waiting to take the oath because without identification, they could not prove that they weren't washouts.

There were actually very few citizens among those that came up seeking a gun. Citizens only made up around ten percent of the population, so out of a crowd of a couple thousand people, you could expect a couple hundred citizens. Most of those had brought weapons of their own. A few citizens had come up who were only armed with handguns and Razak had let them trade up for an assault rifle, and kept the pistol to give to someone else.

As they carried out that task, they were also able to find all of the bus drivers, as one by one, they came up and identified themselves. Razak asked these men and women to wait over by the prospective recruits until he got everything else sorted out. He was pleased to have found them, but with what he'd seen from the air, he suspected that they were going to end up having a surplus of drivers and a deficit of functional buses. The improvised barricades had been crawling with Bugs when they'd come in, and he feared that most if not all of them were going to be undrivable. But until they got out there and actually had a closer look, there was no way they could know for sure.

It took nearly three quarters of an hour, but they finally made it the end of the line. After the citizens were given their pick of the guns, they were left with eighteen MMK-9s, thirty-three of the Moritas, and eight handguns. The number of people who wanted to be sworn into service totaled one hundred and eighty-six. They asked for anyone in the group who had not given them an ID to bring it down, then tossed all the IDs into an empty ammo case and gave it a good long shake to mix them up. Razak began pulling identification cards out of the ammo case and reading off the names. Those that were selected were told to come down out of the bleachers and wait off to one side until fifty-nine had been picked. Razak led the lucky ones through the oath of service, while Rico returned the rest of the IDs back to the disappointed one hundred and twenty-seven men and women who were walking away empty handed.

Now that they had reached the point where they would start handing out the guns, Johnny volunteered for the duty. "I'm sure there must be another few thousand things that could use your attention right now." he said to his lieutenant.

Razak looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "If you're sure you don't think you'd need me. Before you start handing them out, it might help if you gave them a quick demonstration on how to load the gun, where the safety is, and how to shoot what they want to shoot and not shoot anything else."

"I'll do that." said Johnny. "Hey, I've managed to keep Higgins from shooting himself or anyone else this long."

Rico flipped open the lid to one of the cases of guns, pulled out a Morita and held it above his head. As Razak collected the bus drivers, he heard his sergeant begin his gun safety lesson by saying, "This is a gun. It is not a toy. It puts holes in things. It's not picky. . ."

Knowing that there was going to be a lot of heavy lifting that would need to be done before any of the buses were drivable, Razak asked for volunteers from the crowd to go outside and assist with the repairs. He was surprised by how many people offered themselves up, especially since many of them were unarmed civilians. Provided with cover fire by the shooters atop the arena walls, he led the group of around two dozen people outside to inspect the buses and see if any could be salvaged.

Outside the walls, they found that the parking lot was surprisingly free of living Bugs. The presence of Alpha squad up on top of the wall, and the added firepower of Doc and Gossard's Perf guns had made it possible to clear the immediate area of arachnids and while they were still coming out of the nearby streets in a steady stream, they were being cut down only a few feet after they broke cover. The corpses of the Warriors were beginning to pile up over there and were serving to slow down those that were forced to climb over the mounds of their dead comrades. Which was all well and good, but this temporary reprieve from being overrun would only last as long as their ammo did and it would be in their best interest to be headed up the road before the guns began to run out.

They inspected the buses on the east side of the soccer field first, and they found that it was as he had feared; the Bugs had really done a number on the vehicles. They had worked well enough in preventing the Warriors from gaining entrance to the arena, but the Bug's efforts to get past them had left the vehicles in shambles. The thin metal sides of the public transit buses had not been able to withstand the assault of the very determined Bugs trying to get through them. Holes had been torn through the bus' sides, the roofs had been peeled back like the tops of sardine cans, and the passenger seats inside had been mangled and ripped from their moorings. The tires on the side facing away from the arena had been shredded, leaving the buses leaning over on bare rims.

Seeing the state of these first two buses put knots in Razak's gut. If all the buses were in the same condition, moving everyone to the school was going to take much, much longer than his previous estimates. Fortunately, they found that the damage to the buses at the north and south entrances had been less extreme, with only a few flat tires and some broken windows. Only two of the buses has escaped unscathed. Those were the two on the west side of the building, opposite from the direction that the Bugs were approaching. If Razak and his squad had not arrived and slowed the onslaught, the Bugs probably would have worked their way around to those, as well.

Everyone agreed that the two buses on the east side were a lost cause, so they were cannibalized for their parts. Their good tires were stripped off and used to replace the flats on the north and south side buses. Four working buses was actually better than the number that Razak had been expecting that they would be left with. They parked all four buses on the west side of the building and began loading them, starting with the people with the most severe disabilities first.

Remembering the small group of about a dozen or so disabled veterans that he had seen earlier, Razak went to find them and offer them seats on the bus. They flatly refused, saying they would have no issue crossing the three and a half miles to the school under their own power. Besides, the steep steps of the bleachers had kept them from giving the Bugs their comeuppance, so far, and there was no chance they would allow themselves to get stuck on the buses and kept out of the fight. Razak was glad to have them and told them as much.

Having been curious about them since he had first seen them from the air, he took the opportunity to ask how it was that they were all together. They told him they were an amputee support group and had been at a meeting at the local VIPW (Veterans of Interplanetary Wars) when the Transport Bug hit. It was lucky for them that it had worked out that way, they said. Any other time, most of them wouldn't have had their weapons on them, but it was hallowed tradition to bring one if you were going to the VIPW.

One of the men in the group was missing not only his legs, but one of his arms, too. When he noticed Razak's prosthetic hand, he asked whether it was any good and if it was something he'd gotten from veterans benefits.

"Sorry, no." he answered "It's a prototype built by a private company up in Detroit. After I lost my forearm on Pluto, they offered to let me field test it for them. It requires surgical implants in the stump to function, and I had to sign a three inch stack of contracts and waivers, but I'd say that it's worked out pretty well for me. To be honest, though, I'll probably be in the market for something a little more natural looking once I get out of the service. I mean, it's a great hand if you really needed something that comes with a laser and is capable of crushing a pool ball, but I think that something that doesn't frighten children might be more my style."

He felt a kind of easy comradeship with the little group and could have stayed to chew the fat with them all day. But he knew the clock was running, so after only a few minutes, he excused himself to go tell the people loading the buses not to hold seats for the veterans. Those seats were quickly filled by other people who needed them and before long, people were packed into every inch of available space within each of the buses.

Razak would not allow a repeat of the breakdown into chaos that had happened when he brought the civilians to the school the night before, so with this in mind, he carefully organized how the march north would proceed. According to his plan, the buses would be kept to the center of the procession, and driven at an easy walking pace. The civilians were arranged in columns roughly five people wide to each side of the vehicles, and along the outer edges of these columns, he dispersed armed citizens and recruits at twenty foot intervals. He split Alpha Squad between the far ends of the column, with himself, Higgins, Doc, and Flores taking point, and Gossard,T'phai, and Rico bring up the rear.

When they were finally able to get under way, it had been nearly two and a half hours since the Madeleine had left, bound for Freemonte. He could only hope that all his precautions and organization had not cost them too much precious time. Anxiety ate at him as they started the march north and he had to fight the urge to speed up the pace. Most of these people were not military and many would not be used to these kinds of walks. Go too fast, and he ran the risk of having some people lag behind and stringing out his column until it was indefensible.

A corporate business district sprawled up into the area between the soccer stadium and Freemonte High School, made up of tall skyscrapers and luxury hotels. The marchers soon found themselves advancing down through deep canyons of steel and glass. The gloom of the day was even worse here, as the massive buildings were blocking what meager daylight had broken through the clouds.

The Bugs were following them, and could be seen moving in a parallel column only a few blocks over. At each intersection, a pack of Warrior Bugs would peel off from the main company and cross the streets between to probe the human's defenses, looking for weak spots. They had been lucky to have enough people with weapons that they could be spaced fairly close together, so when one of these Bug attacks came, they were met with overlapping fields of fire. So far, the Bugs had been killed or driven back before they could get close enough to hurt any of the civilians.

About a mile into the march, Razak started catching little bursts of radio traffic on his coms, and while he couldn't make heads or tails of what was being said, he thought he recognized Andrea's voice amid all the static and squawks. The only thing he could figure was that all that skyscraper steel was playing havoc with the signals being kicked out by the Madeleine's antiquated communication equipment.

"Say again, Topper." he said into his helmet's radio mic. "I did not copy."

All he got back were more fractured words and sentences that sounded like they were being whispered from the far side of a malfunctioning blender. What could she be trying to tell him? Was he just being told to hurry, or that she could not wait any more and was leaving the school? Without knowing which, he could be leading these people into anything. Perhaps he could get a better signal if he went to higher ground, but he would have had to found a way to the top of one of the surrounding buildings. Those skyscrapers were so incredibly high, he could see no way to get to the top of one of them in any reasonable amount of time. Unless he learned more, he couldn't see any choice other than to stick to the plan and keep going forward.

Fifteen minutes later, and another half a mile to the north, he heard the deep rumble of an explosion to their rear. It hadn't sounded close enough to be an immediate danger to his column, but it had been close enough to make the windows in the surrounding buildings fluctuate in their frames. The procession stopped as everyone turned to see what had blown up. When he couldn't see anything by looking over their heads, he used his jump jets to jump to the roof of the front bus for a better view. Far, far down the street, past the last of the corporate towers, he could just barely see the edge of a massive fireball peeking out from behind a building as it lazily mushroomed into the sky. Flipping down his visor, he used it to zoom in for a closer look.

He couldn't be certain, but he thought the explosion might have been back at the soccer arena. The distance seemed about right. Had the Bugs done something? He couldn't see the point, now that the humans had abandoned the stadium, and besides, he couldn't think of anything back there that could have caused an explosion, at least not one that big. Maybe some fleet bomber pilot had seen all the Bugs going there earlier and decided it might be a juicy target?

Hoping that he might have a better idea of what had happened, he radioed Rico at the rear of the column and asked if he could see what had exploded. His sergeant was on the same page that he was; no idea what had exploded, but thought it might be at the soccer field. Unable to make sense of it, he decided that whatever had happened, he was thankful that it happened back there, and not here.

Jumping back down to the ground, he got the column moving again. His mind kept going back to the explosion, trying to make sense of it, and wondering what Topper had been trying to tell him. All these unknowns were leaving him feeling uneasy, and he kept having to tell himself to focus on the task at hand, and watch for Bugs. They would just have to deal with whatever problems were coming, when they came.

As they started into the next intersection, he heard Dizzy shout, "Tanker Bug at three o'clock!"

Razak turned to his right and saw the Bug she was talking about at the far end of the the street. It was fifteen tons of armored ugly, twice the size of a garbage truck and looking like some kind of freak cross between a turtle, a beetle, and an armadillo. Upon seeing the humans, the Bug tossed it's head up and twin streams of liquid fire squirted from it's mandibles to arch through the air towards them. The only thing that saved them from the Bug's naturally excreted napalm was that it's spitting capabilities were only about half a block. The burning liquid splashed to the ground halfway down the length of the street, but the Bug was shuffling closer every second and would soon have them within range.

Razak turned on his loud speaker, then spun around to face those coming along behind and threw up his arms. "Whoa! Stop! Stop! Back it up! Go back!"

Things got very loud, very quick. First there was the shouting and screaming of the panicked crowd, and then he heard the whine of the electric motor on Doc's Perf gun winding up. When the minigun began to fire, it's roar nearly drowned out all the other noise. Next, there was a series of deafening bangs as Dizzy opened up with her grenade launcher. The bangs echoed off of the side of the surround buildings, accompanied by the crash of shattering windows, and the tinkle of spent rounds bouncing on the ground. Razak glanced over to see if the Perf gun or grenades were having any effect on the Bug.

The armor plates that covered Tanker Bug's back were very nearly invulnerable, and the thick skin that covered the rest of it's body wasn't easy to penetrate, either. Tankers were practically unstoppable, and without some Javelin mini-nukes, a smart squad would avoid going up against one, if at all possible. Flores and Doc were trying to at least slow it down, focusing their fire on the Bug's weakest spots. Flores had dropped to her belly on the ground and was firing from a prone position, letting her grenades skip across the asphalt and up underneath the Bug. Whenever one of the grenades went off under there, the Bug would be jarred by the explosion, causing it to stumble to the side. Razak didn't know if the grenades were doing any real damage, but the low bellowing noises the Bug was making sure didn't lead him to believe that it was enjoying the sensation. All that stumbling around was definitely slowing it's forward progress. Doc was focusing his Perf gun fire on the head and neck of the Bug, chipping away at the overhanging plates of exoskeleton that protected the eyes, then switching to shoot straight down it's throat whenever it tried to spit.

The procession began to reverse direction as the crowd started to understand the danger it was in and a wave of panic washed down through the mass of people The men and women driving the buses seemed to be the last to understand what was going on, and continued to roll forward, even as the crowd turned to flee back down the street. Razak kept waving his arms, trying to get them to reverse. He had to get them going the other way before the Bug reached the intersection, or those buses would be transformed into incinerators and the people that were trapped on those vehicles would be the least able to escape from them. Finally, he ran up to the front bus and gave the grill a good solid kick, getting the driver's attention.

"Go back!" he shouted, and pointed back the way they had come. For the first time, the driver noticed the troopers at the corner behind Razak that were firing their weapons down the side street, and finally caught on. He laid on the bus' horn, reached up for the shifter, and pulled it down into reverse. Sticking his head out the side window so he could see where he was going, he started backing the bus down the street

Razak pulled his Morita from his backpack and raced back to the street corner, hoping to find some way to be of any help against the Tanker. But he knew that there wasn't much he could do with just a Morita. If a Perf gun wasn't getting the job done then his smaller caliber machine gun wouldn't either.

Higgins was reloading Dizzy's grenade launcher with grenades from the case he had been toting, while Dizzy used her rifle to fire three shot bursts from behind a concrete column she was using for cover. He thought about trying to call the rest of Alpha Squad to his position, but knew that they would have to push their way up through a mass of scared people that were running in the opposite direction. It would be like trying to walk upstream through whitewater rapids. By the time they got here, he would probably be yelling at them to head the other way.

"Loaded!" Higgins shouted.

Dizzy let her UAR drop to hang from it's strap, and caught the launcher when Higgins tossed it. Higgins was reaching for his own Morita, but Razak told him to take his grenade case and head back down the street. He could wait for them at the next intersection. While the young private closed up his case, Razak stepped out from around the corner to see where the Bug was. It was less than half a block away. It could have doused them from there, but Doc's constant Perf gun fire was making it keep it's head tucked down to protect it's eyes and that was preventing it from spitting at them. It was still inching closer, though, and Doc's ammo belt would not last forever.

He racked his brain for some method to put this Tanker down and was coming up with nothing That thing was going to just keep coming, and he couldn't see any way that he could get his column around it. Unless someone came up with a brilliant plan to stop it very soon, he wasn't going to be able to get all these refugees to the school, and onto the transport.

It's starting to look pretty bleak for Plan A, he thought, then he remembered that Plan A had been getting a little transport for his squad to take them back to the airport the night before. Plan B had been get to the school and wait. They had to be on Plan P or Plan Q by now. They would have to come up with Plan Q while in retreat, because the Bug was getting really close.

He backed up until he could look down the street and see how far the column had made it. They were about a block and a half away. It would have to be good enough.

"Let's pull back." he told Doc and Flores. "It's too close."

"No argument here." said Dizzy. "That thing looks as eager to spit fire as my old drill sergeant."

She was right, and the moment Doc stopped shooting, it was going to let them have a facefull. He needed to buy them a few seconds. "Flores, lob a few of those grenades right under it's chin. Give it something think about while we get ourselves around the corner. Come on, Doc, let's go!"

After the sustained roar of the Perf gun, it seemed unnaturally quiet when Doc let off the trigger. Doc backed up quickly, keeping his gun trained on the Bug until he was far enough past the corner of the building to lose sight of it, then he turned to jog back up the block. As Razak followed him, he heard the quiet fump, fump, fump of Dizzy's grenade launcher, and then her running footfalls. He heard the first bang of a grenade going off, and then, unexpectedly, there was a boom. A vibration passed through the ground beneath his feet and a concussion hit him in the back so hard that he felt as though he'd been shoved from behind. He stumbled, but kept his feet and saw his shadow on the ground in front of him as he was silhouetted by some bright light to his rear. More booms, five of them in quick succession. Glass and concrete pinged and ricocheted off the sides of the nearby buildings.

He stopped and turned, looking for answers. His ears were ringing, and what he was hearing sounded muted and muffled, like everything was happening in another room. Doc had turned back, and the words, "What just happened?" were written plainly on his face. Dizzy had stopped running a couple yards from the corner of the building. She was just standing there, looking down at the grenade launcher in her hands with eyebrows furrowed, as if she was trying to make sense of what it seemed to have done. Razak walked back toward the corner, cautious and slow.

The Tanker Bug had been blown sideways through the wall of the building across the street. It looked like it had been caught broadside by a three ton wrecking ball. It's left side had been caved in, it's armor plates shattered, and it's juicy insides had been squeezed out around the pieces. The Bug's mandibles hung limply from it's head, and a small stream of liquid fire dribbled from it's mouth. Razak had seen many a dead Bug in his day, and in his expert opinion, that was one dead Bug.

It didn't make any sense. A grenade could not have done that kind of damage, and even if they had somehow managed to get the Tanker Bug's napalm to explode with one of the grenades, which would have been extremely unlikely, it would have blown outwards, not caved in. As he looked around for clues, he noticed that the ground, the Bug, and the walls of the two buildings on each side of the street were covered with black burn marks. Across the asphalt he saw fragments of blackened, twisted metal, too big to have come from a grenade. A fleet bomb, maybe? He walked forward, kicked one over, and saw the partially burned label of a paint can.

He was still trying to puzzle that out when he realized that the ringing in his ears had quieted a little, and he was hearing something else. The roar of very large vertical thruster engines. He looked up, and high above the top of the buildings, he saw the Sweet Madeleine. Her loading ramp was lowered and he could see people standing out on it, waving down to him.

Razak flipped down his visor and zoomed in. Among those standing on the ramp, he recognized Principal Shubert and Mr Fohler, the chemistry teacher. The paint can bombs suddenly made sense.

He tapped on his coms and said, "Topper, this is Razak. You copy?"

With the clear line of sight to the ship, she came back loud and clear. "Hello, Jean. How are things down there?"

"I'm feeling a little out of the loop, actually. Mind filling me in?"

"Things got bad at the school and we got overrun." she told him. "We got everyone loaded and waited for you as long as we could, but I had to take off or the Bugs would have had us."

"I'm sure you didn't have a choice." said Razak, then he asked, "You have any suggestions for an alternate landing site?"

"If you head back to the soccer field, we'll pick you up there."

He thought that maybe he still wasn't hearing things right. "Come again? I thought the soccer field was too small, and besides, I think I saw something big blow up over there a little while back."

"Yeah, we did that." said Andrea.

"Hold on? That fireball I saw looked like it could have come from a fleet bomb. You telling me Dahl had something that big hidden on board?"

"The bomb didn't come from Dahl." she said. "Right before we left the school, I noticed this guy pulling up next to the ship in a pickup truck. He had a truck bed full of fifty gallon barrels, all of them rigged with fuses. I asked him what that was all about and he said it was an explosive he'd whipped up as a little goodbye present for the Bugs, and that it was powerful enough to take out half the school. After the initial shock wore off, it occurred to me that it might be of more use if we used it to level a soccer stadium."

"Mr Fohler had said that he could build something like that, but I kind of thought that he might be exaggerating."

"He wasn't whistling dixie, I assure you." said Andrea. "That arena is nothing but smoldering splinters now."

"Let's hear it for better living through chemistry." Razak said with a laugh. "How is Captain Dahl behaving?"

"Tom's napping."

"Huh?"

"Well, when we brought the bomb on board, he lost his mind a little."

"Yeah, that's the reaction I would have expected from him."

"He started waving his gun around, threatening people and a bunch of the cops dogpiled him. They were not gentle."

"I wish I could have been there to see that." said Razak. "Why is he napping? Did they give him a concussion or something?"

"No, one of the paramedics gave him a sedative to calm him down."

"I gotta tell you, Topper, I'm so tired right now, I kind of envy him. Just to be certain, before we walk all the way back to the soccer field, are you sure you can land there now?"

"Trust me." she replied. "With the place flattened, I got room to spare."

"Then I guess time's a wastin'. I better go catch up with my column and herd them back the way they came."

"Sounds good, Jean." said Topper. "We'll meet you there."

The Madeleine came about to face south and then moved slowly down the street two blocks over. Shortly afterward, he started hearing loud booms again as the veterans aboard the ship dropped more of Mr Fohler's IEDs onto the Warrior Bugs coming up the street.

As Razak led his troopers at a jog to catch up with the rest of the column, he heard Dizzy say, wearily, "Is this day over yet?

"Almost." he told her. "Barring further unforeseen complications, that is."

"I don't see how it could even be possible for us to have unforeseen complications, sir." said Dizzy. "We got us a Spec-ops trained psychic on the squad. Ain't that right, Higgins?"

At the end of the block, Higgins was standing with his back to them, watching the crowd as it continued to flee towards the south. Upon hearing his name, he spun around. "Huh? Wha?"

"Exactly." said Dizzy.

* * *

Epilogue:

The following is an excerpt from an interview of journalist/author Robert Higgins, conducted by Amanda Cresswell thirteen years after the Bug invasion of Buenos Aires.

AC: Have you seen the film "Escape from Buenos Aires?"

RH: No, but I've read the book it was based on.

AC: Then you are aware that there is a character based on you in the film.

RH: I think you mean 'loosely based'. But, yes, I'm aware there is a character that shares the same name as me.

AC: Are you suggesting that Tom Dahl's depiction of you in the book is inaccurate?

RH: (laughter) I think the phrase you're looking for is 'wildly inaccurate'.

AC: I see. How do you respond to his allegations that you psychically assaulted him in an attempt to obtain passwords that would allow your squad to steal his ship?

RH: I am not now, nor have I ever been a psychic.

AC: Is that a denial?

RH: Maybe Mr Dahl's ghostwriter made a typo and it was supposed to say physically instead of psychically. I've always had a reputation for a propensity for violence. (laughter) Sorry, no. Dahl's version of events are absurd.

AC: So, your squad did not attempt to steal Mr. Dahl's ship from him in order to transport weapons you had stolen from SICON and intended to sell on the black market?

RH: No, that didn't happen.

AC: What about his claim that he single-handedly retook the ship from you in order to use it to rescue refugees?

RH: (sustained laughter)(coughing fit) I'm sorry. I mean, I've read what he claimed, but I'd never actually heard anyone say it out loud before. . .


End file.
